Name spelling question...

Kentuckychick wrote: So according to the facebook quiz (I know, I know ) I took yesterday, I'm supposed to be getting pregnant by October 10th 2009. Yeeeeah right. And my first child's name will be Brandon. Erm... no thanks.

But that brought up a conversation on fb with my family/friends about baby names and I was saying that my two favorite names right now are Matthew Liam and Katheryn Emerson (or Katheryn Ailish).

My aunt came on and said... "I love the name Katheryn... but you spelled it incorrectly. It's supposed to be spelled Catherynne! Love, your spell checking (she always spell checks my posts!) auntie, also known as Auntie Catherynne."


We all had a good laugh because obviously she wants my future daughter to be named after her... and I said that would be fine but we call her "Cathy" and I like the name "Katie"... I guess it could be "Catie". But then this morning my mom said that my spelling looks "funny".

Fine then!

Anyway, to the question...

How would YOU spell it?

I've seen Katherine, Katheryn, Catherine, Catheryn, Catherynne... a kabillion spellings... is there really any RIGHT way?

bluebear replied: Catherine
Katherine
Katheryn
"Katie" can be spelt with a K or a C reguardless if the name starts with a C or a K. I know a Caitlin that goes by Katie. Plus, Catie looks like catty.

cameragirl21 replied: Well, the common spelling is Katherine and I suspect Catherine is a variation of that, or perhaps it's the other way around. There are othe spellings but they are all made up, so to speak. While I'm all for originality, I personally think people should stick to the common spelling unless there is deep meaning that leads to a change, for instance, in Judaism, we name our children after someone, usually a family member, who passed away and I knew a couple who needed a G name, had a girl and named her Genna, instead of Jenna because they had a meaningful reason. I still thought the name looked distorted but it's their business, not mine. I think that unless a name is original, ideally, people should stick to the common spelling otherwise you are resigning your kid to a lifetime of having to spell his/her name for people as they will assume it to be the common spelling.
I knew a girl in college called Kristina and our professor used her as an example for something she was teaching and wrote her name on the chalk board as Christina and the girl said, "it's with a K" with great annoyance in her voice and I remember thinking that while I liked the girl a heck of a lot more than I liked the professor, the girl had no reason to be annoyed, the prof made a fair assumption about the spelling of her name. I bet she was annoyed because that must get old after a while.

mom21kid2dogs replied: Olivia's middle name is Kathryn.

A&A'smommy replied: I personally like Katherine or Kathryn the best catherine gets on my nerves LOL

MoonMama replied: I'd spell it Katheryn.

MommyToAshley replied: If I were to write the name without knowing how the person actually spelled it, I would spell it like this: Katherine.

However, I don't think there is any "right" or "wrong" way to spell a name. The spelling can be as creative as the name itself, as long as it makes sense. I have seen some weird spellings that the name is not pronounced anything like how it is spelled and I am sure they get pronounced wrong on a daily basis -- that would get annoying.

My3LilMonkeys replied: Brooke's middle name is Catherine. I preferred Kathryn, but since I picked Brooke DH got to pick the spelling. I think any of the ways you listed are all perfectly fine.

MyBlueEyedBabies replied: Katy is Kathryn. My middle name is Catherine I have never seen Katheryn. (I guess that gives my 'vote')

mckayleesmom replied: There are so many ways to spell names now that I have seen alot of them.


I think your aunts spelling is neat....You can always shorten it to Cadie and I have seen it spelt Caty Cadee, and Catie before too.

Kentuckychick replied: Thanks for chiming in everybody! I think we deduced that it looks weird to mom because of the "e"... she said she's seen it Kathryn before but not Katheryn.

I think I'd probably actually go with Katherine because honestly as a Rachel without the a (Rachael - meh) I have always hated when people question the spelling of my name... so I'd rather go with the most original spelling.

Kentuckychick replied:
We always joke that she got the crazy name "Catherynne Lynn"... all those y's and nnnn's... that's a mouthful!

And my poor mom, Linda Jo. My grandmother ran out of her creativity during the 11 months between their births I suppose

bluebear replied:
with the extra E thrown in, I would think it was pronounced differently.

Any name with an extra letter thrown in like that I feel is pronounced in a different way than it's supposed to be
Maybe that's just me

Calimama replied: I prefer Catherine. That seems the most traditional to me.