‘Hi Ezter, Thank you for your application, we would like to invite you for an interview…’ reads the email.  

But I don’t even read further, I just bury my head in my hands. That’s not my name.  

This is just one of the many, many instances people have not bothered to double-check how I spell my name: Eszter.  

It is the Hungarian version of the Jewish name Esther. It comes from the Bible, with a meaning I always found inspiring: ‘star’. It represents a beautiful, unattainable but ever-constant light in the sky. A sign, a dream, a wish. 

My parents named me after my great-grandmother, who I was fortunate enough to know. She was soft-spoken, wise and kind. She adored food and loved cooking. My name is part of my identity and heritage. In my home country, it’s very common and I never had struggles with it growing up. 

When I arrived in the UK in 2016, a rosy-cheeked 18-year-old with her dreams of studying abroad coming true, I never thought that overnight, my name would turn into an impossible riddle for others.  

I have received 37 incorrectly spelled pieces of correspondence since last October alone – I know because that is when I grew so frustrated that I started to keep them in a folder. 

When I first saw it misspelled, my first thought was always that it was a simple mistake, accidental. Nothing to get worked up about.

But in recent months I’ve realised that the dozens of emails addressed to the wrong person that I have received over the years since settling in the UK suggest a more serious issue than erroneous spelling. I wonder, what is it? Xenophobia? Ignorance? Othering? 

Throughout university, as I was learning to become a journalist, I was ‘Ezster’, ‘Ester’, occasionally even ‘Easter’. I never held any grudges against my lecturers, classmates, even friends who got my name wrong because I was too shy to correct them. If they looked at my email address, signature or social media profiles, they could have seen what the correct spelling was, they just didn’t bother. 

At my first job as a waitress, I was mostly ‘Eshter’ or ‘Ezter’ (but ‘Easter’ never really went away either). I used to try and correct my manager on the schedules and in emails but it was exhausting and always in vain. I would sigh, roll my eyes in annoyance and walk away, only to come back to a different spelling mistake the next week. 

I was the ‘foreign girl’, after all, this felt very on-brand. I was often part of strange conversations about ‘these immigrants swarming in’, about my voting rights and whether there are trains in Hungary – a very real discussion I had with a co-worker. 

After I left that job in November last year and became a freelance journalist, writer and later social media editor, the problem became more noticeable. I came across ‘Eztert’, ‘Estzer’ and an abomination I never thought possible, ‘Estzter’. Emails with different spellings of my name came from colleagues, bosses and strangers alike. 

But it’s not only in work matters that this pattern emerges. My local supermarket loyalty card is incorrect, takeaway places struggle with my name and letters come through my mailbox misspelled. 

I see the desperation in my mailman’s eyes as he’s trying to confirm he’s at the right door by asking if I am ‘Ezster’. Pronunciation is a separate issue because the spoken Hungarian and English languages are so fundamentally different, I am used to the anglicised sounds and the inevitable ‘am I saying that right’? I always appreciate it. 

And, of course, my surname ‘Tárnai’ is a whole other dimension. Other than the ‘strange’ accent on the ‘a’, surprisingly, most people spell it correctly. Pronunciation is, again, difficult if not impossible with an English tongue but I relish any attempt. 

In time, it all became too much and I started keeping a folder on my phone of these misspelled emails and documents. I typed out a few apologetic emails, explaining the correct spelling of my name, then a few strongly-worded ones but I never sent them. I didn’t want people to think I was rude, narcissistic or focusing on the wrong part. 

I felt embarrassed to ‘obsess over a tiny detail’ when my name was right there in my email signature at the bottom of every correspondence. They could have looked, but they didn’t. I just assumed they didn’t care or that they didn’t respect me enough to even try. 

I found myself focusing my energy on never spelling anyone’s name wrong from ‘Sián’ to ‘Kathrine’ and ‘Juanita’. Both as a journalist and as a human, it is important to me that I spell everyone’s name correctly. Not only because it’s a professional and common courtesy but also because I care about it. 

As I reflect on the anger, disappointment, frustration and alienation I felt every time someone spelled my name wrong, I realise, it’s not about the missing ‘z’, ‘s’ or reference to a Christian holiday.  

It’s about the jobs I didn’t get, because of my ‘foreign’ name, the looks I get when I speak Hungarian on the phone, the disgust I see from strangers when I mention food such as my mom’s bone-marrow soup. 

I don’t talk to her about these incidents because, especially lately, we have more important topics to discuss, having not seen her in more than a year. If I did, she would probably tell me to be brave and stand up for myself, which is, in a way, what I am doing right now. 

People getting my name wrong repeatedly sums up every microaggression I ever experienced in the UK, wrapped into one, convenient and irritating package. 

That is what I feel every time anyone misspells my name – like an outsider, desperate to be included in the smallest, most insignificant way and still alienated by a country she considers her home. 

I am proud of my culture, my name and I am proud to live in a country so diverse that I have to double-check unusually spelt and richly traditional names daily. 

My long-standing relationships with friends and colleagues who have never made a mistake when writing a note, message or email to me prove that I am not alone in this.  

This bare minimum of effort from my fellow humans shows mutual respect and feels like a welcoming hug because yes, I do notice, and appreciate it when someone gets it right. Thank you to anyone who has made sure to never misspell my name, it means a lot. 

My wrong-name folder is still taking up space on my phone and probably will until I find the confidence to finally correct someone. Then, I can delete it victoriously.  

From now on, I vow to correct you, even if it takes multiple occasions, putting aside any awkwardness, shyness and discomfort because I love my name and I wouldn’t want anyone else’s.  

My goal is that years in the future, people will learn how to spell my name from reading my articles so often. Because guess what, UK? Eszter is not going anywhere! 

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