One of the great things about our industry is the variety of people we get to work with; people from all different countries, cultures and ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. The other side of this coin is that we have a lot of clients and colleagues who aren’t named Bob or Janet, which brings up a few issues that we need to pay attention to:
- Get the spelling right. Take this from someone who receives e-mail addressed to Corrine, Corrinne and even “Hey Connie!” (from someone I’ve never met). If someone has an uncommon name, copy their name from the e-mail that they sent you so that you get it right. When it comes to first impressions, there really is no bigger turnoff than being addressed by the wrong name.
- Call people what they ask to be called. In some cases, people want to be called by a name that isn’t their given name, and really that’s their prerogative. I learned this lesson when I kept insisting to an Asian acquaintance that I wanted to try using her Chinese name, rather than Veronica, the name she used in English. Finally she explained that it pained her to hear English speakers butcher her Chinese name, and she’d really (really) rather be called Veronica. Another Asian friend told me that he (emphasis on “he”) asked to be called Scott rather than his Chinese name, Hoa, because he was “tired of getting rejection letters addressed to ‘Dear Ms. Ly’.” So, use the name that your client or colleague asks you to use.
- Use titles wisely. Similar to French’s use of “tu” and “vous,” it’s sometimes hard to know when to use a title and when to use someone’s first name. In general if you’re contacting a prospective client, a title is a safe bet. In English, always use “Ms.” for women even if you know that the person is married. Again, take this from someone who receives e-mail to “Dear Mrs. McKay,” which is actually my mother, since I don’t use my husband’s last name. The place where I think it’s good to omit a title is when you want to put someone at ease; when someone is contacting you as the employer/authority/job reference, etc. and you want to let them know that you’re really not that scary, I think it’s good to respond to the “Dear Mr. Warren” e-mail with “Dear Celeste, thanks for your message and feel free to call me Paul.”
- Gender. This is a hard one. If you have a name that is used for both genders (Chris, Alex, Terry, etc.) or a name for which the gender is not obvious to English speakers, you may or may not want to clarify your gender. It’s easy to do with a simple “Ms. Alex Thomas” or “Mr. Fouad El Tawil” in your e-mail signature file, but of course it’s up to you whether or not you want to do this.
Those are great points, Corinne! I especially like the gender comments. As a non-native English speaker, I have always been very confused that certain names that to me are clearly male or female can be used for both genders. Now that I have know this for a few years, I am mortified to call anyone on the phone who has sent me an e-mail and is named Dana, Shannon, Kelly (Who knew? I didn’t — until I had a female colleague married to a Kelly. I thought this was two girls. Luckily, my colleague used a pronoun when talking about her husband, whew.)
I have tried to work around the gender issue by calling and saying “Is Dana Sanchez in?”. When the answer is no, I’d have to use the pronoun in the next sentence, but to avoid that, I end up sounding stupid and say “When will Dana Sanchez be back?” — because I can’t say Mr. or Mrs. either because I don’t know! Interesting dilemma. Does anyone have a clever way of working around it?
Great suggestions.
One thing that has worked well for me when you don’t know someone’s gender or preferred title is, just ask! I’m not sure why people dance around the issue, but people with gender-ambiguous names have really appreciated me just admitting whatever ignorance I am suffering from and asking what they prefer–and then I’m sure to get it exactly right from then on. I always get a reply that begins, “Thanks so much for asking.”
One thing to watch out for with Chinese names, too, is that the family name comes first, unless the order has been Westernized, so it’s good to check both on the person’s preference and/or on the copy editor’s preference for your material. For example, Mao Zedong’s given name was Zedong, and his family name was Mao. This naming order happens also to be true for Hungarian names (and I’m sure many others).
I use this site before responding to emails when I’m not sure of the person’s gender:
http://www.babynology.com
You can check over 100,000 names from all over the world. It has been very helpful.
Great article. One needs to be careful about names which appear in more than one language. The babynology.com site is great but you need to know the cultural background of the person too. Andrea and Nicola, for example, are usually female in the US but usually male in Italy. I say usually because Italian parents, let’s say, might move to the US and might call their son Andrea.
Although it’s always a 50-50 call, I agree with Corinne that you can’t afford to make a bad first impression. I tend to admit my ignorance and ask. It often works to break the ice and I find that most people are genuinely pleased that this was considered.
Oh, and please, keep the hyphens where they belong and do not amputate my name: I’m “Marie-Louise”, I’m not a “Marie” who feels like stating her middle name in a weird way.
Thanks for the post.
Thanks to everyone for your comments, it’s great to see that we all struggle with this to one extent or another! The babynology website is a big help and one that I had never seen before. Also MT is completely correct that one of the stumbling blocks is names that change gender depending on the country (a colleague told me that his wife Rosario is routinely called “he” in Italy). Judy, your example of “When will Dana Sanchez be back?” perfectly encapsulates the issue!
Marie-Louise, you pointed out another crucial issue with names; I have a few French colleagues whose pet peeve is having the accents in their names omitted, because the word would be pronounced completely differently in French without them.