Comments

  2. Nathaniel Meyers says

    I think you only *notice* the misspellings. I *swear* I must get more misspellings then you do. (And *man* does it *bug* when people refer to Myers Rum or Myers lemons and expect me to be amused.)

    BTW, doesn’t it bug you that the “y” isn’t well balanced by an “e” are each side?

  3. says

    Ha! I actually read about this on Pandagon, and after I checked for my surname and my friends’ surnames, the next thought that came to mind was “I wonder whether ‘Myers’ or ‘Meyers’ is more popular.”

  4. says

    My last name is not on the list. But I looked up Martin, because there are a lot of Martins living around here, is 17th.

    I still do not understand how anyone can misspell Myers.

  5. Moses says

    Not even in the Top 5000. Which is not a surprise. My family has been here from the earliest days of Colonial America (400 years by the time I hit retirement), but we’re ALL descended of the one man who was part of a very small family (surname) in England who had one son before he died.

  7. Jim MYers says

    You would think the most phonetically intuitive spelling would the one most chosen, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to be the case. More than 50% of the people who have to spell my name misspell it AFTER seeing it written correctly.

  9. Bride of Shrek says

    Not even there, not suprising given Mr Shrek and I combined both our names with a hyphen when we got married so its brand new made up name. Oooooh, don’t we sound new age. I swear we did it just to drive the government department that issues driver’s licences here absolutely bananas. They could cope with me changing my name after marriage but not my husband. Some old crusty bitch at the counter even told us it JUST WASN’T PROPER to do that.

  11. Bride of Shrek says

    Not to mention the cheap thrill its gives Mr Shrek to tell people he had a “maiden” name. Honestly, what a poser!

  24. says

    Heck I’ve read this blog for years and misspelled Myers in a post just the other day. It was a blemish on an otherwise extremely witty dig at Behe (in the Order of Molly thread).

    *sigh*

    My name is often spelled right even though it’s less dominant.

  26. says

    Now can everyone please start using the dominant, correct spelling?

    OK, but I refuse to say “PeeZee”.

    And ‘Karosas’ isn’t on the list. I didn’t realise there was such an anti-Lithuanian sentiment in the US. We were the first to jump the sinking Soviet ship, for cryin’ out loud.

    Pfah. Buncha ingrates.

  28. Charon says

    To those not looking at the complete list (well, the N>=100 list):

    Schlueter 7093
    Laden 30552
    Haubrich 23848

    Currently I seem to be winning, coming in at 59293. (Or losing, if you prefer, but I’ll think of it as winning.)

  29. Ivor the Engine Driver says

    Thought you should know that the World’s Best Brother-in-Law, Floyd Myers, died this morning in his sleep at 4:05 a.m.

  30. Brian English says

    I scored 692. Well, that’s an insult. My surname is the language the article was written in after all. huff

  31. Adam S says

    I share your pain. My last name ends in ‘myer’ but everybody wants to spell it with ‘meyer’ even though that last name (with meyer) doesn’t exist.

  33. Nathaniel Meyers says

    Doesn’t it bug you to have that redundant “e” in your name? Or do you pronounce it “Mee-yers”?

    Nope. It’s pronounced the same as yours (I assume). I always thought the two “e” made the name appear balanced which “Myers” without the extra “e” doesn’t.

    Weird, though the number of times it gets misspelled. I’ve met far more “Myers” than other “Meyers”

  34. Crudely Wrott says

    I can appreciate your quandary. I try to always state my name clearly and intelligibly. Would you believe that about half of the time someone responds, with an indulgent smile, “Schmitt?”

    Maybe I need new teeth.

  35. says

    Perhaps, just as my first name’s skyrocketing into the top 10 baby names made everyone suddenly be able to spell it, this will teach everyone how to spell my middle name.

    I must also forward this to my mother (it’s her last name).

  36. Geoff says

    I will be sure to tell my sixth grade math teacher Mrs. Meyers that she in a minority. It would give me pleasure to also tell her that her jokes were really bad and my fellow students thought she was a bit of a jerk.

    Though I kinda liked her because she was good humored. Name misspelled and all.

    My fellow students were jerks.

  40. Bride of Shrek says

    My interest in this started when my fathe, who is an ENT Surgeon, gained a resident called Dr Death. He pronounced it “Deeeth” but we all knew better.

  41. Bride of Shrek says

    Um, that should be NOMINATIVE determinism. Squirmy six month old on lap makes for good typos.

  42. HP says

    Huh. My last name is Peirce. Pee-ee-AYE-arr-cee-ee. “Just like the famous philosopher,” I cheerfully explain to the blank, uncomprehending stare of the clerk at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. “You know, C.S. Peirce — founder of semiotics, inventor of multivalued logic? No relation, of course — that I know of ha-ha! He pronounced it ‘purse,’ but I pronounce it ‘pierce.” … Okay, you’re typing it backwards. Ee and then Aye. Yeah, yeah, ‘and sometimes P.’ I blame my Dad. Slow down and try again. Now hit Enter. There ya go.”

  45. says

    I’m not surprised at all that I don’t rank anywhere on that list. Even though we, too, came over on some of the first boats to America.

  46. Moopheus says

    “There is a list by the Bureau that has a far more complete list. 151,000+ records ”

    My name didn’t even make this list. An endangered species. As far as I know, everyone with my last name is descended from my great-grandfather or his two brothers.

  48. BigBob says

    Bit of Genealogy for you – the way our families originally spelt our names was determined by the teacher who taught your first literate ancestor to write it down. Thus two members of the same extended family, attending different schools in neighbouring villages could get different spellings. Neither is right, neither is wrong. Also, checking back through the records, census, births, marriages and deaths, officials filled in the forms for those who couldn’t write, hence a family will change the spelling of its name overnight. Read ’em and weep.
    Bob (Big)

  49. Dawn says

    BigBob – not only last names. My great-grandfather wasn’t sure what my great-grandmother’s middle name was, so on their marriage license it was arbitrarily listed as Helene. (And he had her brother with him…who said not a word!) And, BTW…her middle name was Nancy.

  50. David Marjanović, OM says

    I always thought Ernst Mayr spelled it the original way.

    The phonetically sane way in German is Meier, which appears to be the most common version in German-speaking countries. But you can also get Maier, Mayr, Mair, and Meyer…

    (And he had her brother with him…who said not a word!)

    My mother occasionally forgets some of those of her 5 siblings. Maybe that’s why my generation hasn’t got any. But then, over here almost nobody ever uses more than one given name, no matter how many they have.

    Huh. My last name is Peirce. Pee-ee-AYE-arr-cee-ee. “Just like the famous philosopher,” I cheerfully explain to the blank, uncomprehending stare of the clerk at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. “You know, C.S. Peirce — founder of semiotics, inventor of multivalued logic? No relation, of course — that I know of ha-ha! He pronounced it ‘purse,’ but I pronounce it ‘pierce.” … Okay, you’re typing it backwards. Ee and then Aye. Yeah, yeah, ‘and sometimes P.’ I blame my Dad. Slow down and try again. Now hit Enter. There ya go.”

    That’s the kind of English name that might as well be spelled with a Chinese character. That would even have an advantage: it would cure people of the idea that there ought to be a connection between the way it’s written and the way it’s pronounced.

    I’m not surprised at all that I don’t rank anywhere on that list. Even though we, too, came over on some of the first boats to America.

    I’ve never seen your spelling. Try Weis, Weiss, Weiß, even Weihs… and Wyss, arguably.

    Thus two members of the same extended family, attending different schools in neighbouring villages could get different spellings.

    In places where the orthography doesn’t apply to names, that is. Where my name comes from, it does.

  51. David Marjanović, OM says

    I always thought Ernst Mayr spelled it the original way.

    The phonetically sane way in German is Meier, which appears to be the most common version in German-speaking countries. But you can also get Maier, Mayr, Mair, and Meyer…

    (And he had her brother with him…who said not a word!)

    My mother occasionally forgets some of those of her 5 siblings. Maybe that’s why my generation hasn’t got any. But then, over here almost nobody ever uses more than one given name, no matter how many they have.

    Huh. My last name is Peirce. Pee-ee-AYE-arr-cee-ee. “Just like the famous philosopher,” I cheerfully explain to the blank, uncomprehending stare of the clerk at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. “You know, C.S. Peirce — founder of semiotics, inventor of multivalued logic? No relation, of course — that I know of ha-ha! He pronounced it ‘purse,’ but I pronounce it ‘pierce.” … Okay, you’re typing it backwards. Ee and then Aye. Yeah, yeah, ‘and sometimes P.’ I blame my Dad. Slow down and try again. Now hit Enter. There ya go.”

    That’s the kind of English name that might as well be spelled with a Chinese character. That would even have an advantage: it would cure people of the idea that there ought to be a connection between the way it’s written and the way it’s pronounced.

    I’m not surprised at all that I don’t rank anywhere on that list. Even though we, too, came over on some of the first boats to America.

    I’ve never seen your spelling. Try Weis, Weiss, Weiß, even Weihs… and Wyss, arguably.

    Thus two members of the same extended family, attending different schools in neighbouring villages could get different spellings.

    In places where the orthography doesn’t apply to names, that is. Where my name comes from, it does.

  52. imsd007 says

    Hi David,
    Phonetically sane or not: according to Wikipedia

    http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meier_%28Name%29

    the most common spelling in Germany is “Meyer” (100.638), followed by “Meier” (44.996) and “Maier” (40.246).

    (This may be different in Austria or Switzerland)

    In the list of most common names in Germany “Meyer” is no. 6. If you count other variations of this name, it is no. 2.
    This does not even count “Mittermeier”, “Grönemeyer”, “Sedlmayr”, etc. etc.

  54. Bee says

    Now, PZed, the correct spelling, as used by the original land grant settlers in my neck o’ the woods, is ‘Meaghers’, pronounced just as you pronounce ‘Myers’. There are whole communities with the name (and at least one of them has the reduced spelling, Myers – hey, do you have ancestors in Nova Scotia?).

  56. TimmyTheBrave says

    > THIS. IS. AMERICAAAAA!!!

    (At the risk of a kick in the virtual nuts)
    No mate, this is Earth! Your community is global.
    Timmy

  57. says

    Sorry, sir! But in my weak defense, in all my time in Minnesota, in the news or in family circles, I have only seen it spelled one way.

    But when I realized my error, I saw I was being an utter prat.

  58. Another Meyers says

    And for those who live in Michigan or surrounding states there is the giant superstore Meijer, which has the original Dutch spelling (when you write and ij in cursive, it’s just the same as a y with two dots on top).

  59. Clare says

    The great, pioneering Bollywood actress, Sulochana (real name Ruby Myers) had similar problems getting her name spelled right, it seems. So you are in good company, PZ.

  60. Nathaniel Meyers says

    “I assure you, it’s equally annoying to have an “s” constantly added to your name.”

    -Lori Meyer

    This is a weird thing. Myers is about eight times more common than Meyers (no surprise to either PZ or me), yet Meyer is about eight times more common than Myer. What’s that about?

    I don’t mind the people who misspell Meyers so much (except when I say “M –E– Y -E -R -S” “Nope, can’t find your file.” “Did you look under M-E-Y?” “It’s M-Y-E-R-S, right?” “No. It’s “M-E-Y-E-R-S, with an E between the M and the Y.” “M-E-Y?” “Yes, M-E-Y” “Ok, M-E, M-E, is it M-E-I-R?” I’d like to say that is exagerated but it happens at least once a month) But I hat it when people spell Nathaniel as “Nathanial”. (“Don’t most people spell in Nathanial?” “No, very rarely and archically it is spelled Nathanael and I once met a son of an illiterate herion junkie who spelled it Nathanul but no-one, ever, any where at any time, in any place, has ever spelled it Nathanial” “What about Nathaniel Hawthorne?” ARGGGHHHH!)

  61. Nathaniel Meyers says

    Okay, which is more annoying, do you figure?

    PZ’s dilema of often having his name misspelled despite the fact that his is the far more common spelling, or my dilema of having my name nearly always misspelled because it is the far less common. Actually, I get the “s” left off probably more often then I get the “e” left out.

  62. J Myers says

    Heck I’ve read this blog for years and misspelled Myers in a post just the other day. It was a blemish on an otherwise extremely witty dig at Behe (in the Order of Molly thread).

    Yes, Tatarize, and you were playing off my comment at the time…. you really have no excuse for that one!

  63. imsd007 says

    >> the most common spelling in Germany

    > THIS. IS. AMERICAAAAA!!!

    Oh, I’m sorry – I must have missed an “AMERICANS ONLY” disclaimer somewhere. ;-)

    I thought the name “MYERS” is most likely of German origin.

  64. Nathaniel Meyers says

    My Meyers is of russian origin (from Meyerovitch). I guess the “s” is from “ovitch”. Don’t know if the “e” makes it russian…