Awkward Situation: How to Correct Someone Nicely

I’ve known my bestie Blair Murphy since 4th grade. That’s a long time, folks. We tell each other just about everything because that’s just what you do with your closest girlfriends. But there was this one time, about three months ago when I realized Blair was pronouncing Eva’s name incorrectly and I wasn’t sure how to tell her.

Let me back up first and say I know Eve is usually the shorter version of Evelyn, which is Eva’s full name. But I just liked Eva more PLUS I really like the idea of having a full formal name, just like my full name is Kathryn but I go by Katie. I also liked the “Evelyn” spelling more than “Evalyn” which my brother has bugged me about a lot. Most importantly, I knew it was going to be a name that people would probably pronounce wrong because there are so many popular names that are so similar to Eva such as Ava, Evie, and Eva-pronounced like Eh-va. It could go on and on.

But we pronounce her name with a long-E:  EE-va

Anyway, back to Blair. I noticed that she was calling her Ava. With a long-A sound. But I didn’t correct her on it the first time, which was mistake because with each phone call, it made it harder and harder to tell her. It’s kind of an awkward thing to correct, ya know? I wasn’t offended at all, I just thought she should probably know what her real name is. Ha.

So, two months later (yeah, it went on for two whole months), we were talking about Blair’s boyfriend who has an unusual name. Then the thought came to me… this is the perfect segue to telling her!

I said something along the lines of this:

Uhm, Blair. I need to tell you something that might be kind of awkward at first. But once I tell you, we’re going to laugh a lot about it.

Okay?

Soooo… you know how you call my daughter Ava?

Yeah?

She actually goes by Eva.

Blair and I immediately started laughing and then Blair said she wondered why we spelled it that way if it was pronounced Ava. Blair also made fun of me for not telling her for two months…

Like I said, I know I had it coming when naming her Eva and I’m never offended when someone pronounces it incorrectly. But I thought this story was pretty funny and my mom thought I should share it.

And just in case you still don’t know how to pronounce it, just copy how Wall-E says Eve’s name (Skip to 1:12). EEEE-VA!

Oh my gosh, I forgot how much I love that movie.