WIBTA if I started calling my white coworkers by random ‘white’ names?

A Black woman, Tina, shared her frustration about being called the wrong name at work for almost a year, despite her repeated polite corrections. Colleagues often assume her name is more “Black-sounding,” like Tiana or Tiara, or even confuse her with a former Black employee named Mary.

After constant misnaming, Tina is considering playfully calling her coworkers the wrong “white” names in response. Is this a justified way to handle the disrespect, or would it make her the AH? Read the full story below to decide…

‘ WIBTA if I started calling my white coworkers by random ‘white’ names?’

I moved from Georgia to the Pacific Northwest last year for a dream job after I graduated college. It was a little bit of a culture shock, because I went from being one of many black people around at any given time to often being the only non-white person in a room, let alone black person.

There hasn’t been a lot of overt racism, but there’s been a lot of strange borderline situations that are amusing and race-related but not necessarily r**ist. For example, every white woman I meet mentions Beyonce to me within the first five minutes.

When I was sitting for my driver’s license photo the woman taking my picture opened with, ‘So… Beyonce.’ So the problem in the post title is that I am the only black woman at my office, and I am constantly, constantly being called the wrong name at work, and I’m coming up on my one-year anniversary.

My name is Tina, short for Christina. Pronounced just like it looks, very easy name. For some reason, a handful of people at work call me Tiana, Tiara, or Tia, I think assuming that my name has to be more ‘black sounding’ than it is. I am most often called Tiana,

especially by one of the guys on our development team and by the ‘big boss’ for another team, which I think then confuses their team members back into calling me the wrong name again. The other thing is that apparently another black woman (elderly, not in the same position I’m in) used to work there and I get called her name (Mary) sometimes too.

Sometimes people will look at my name plate and ask me, “How do you pronounce that?” It’s Tina! I have tried politely correcting this and I correct it immediately every time. From polite, “Just for the record, my name is Tina!” to lighthearted, “Tina, like Tina Belcher!” In e-mails from me that say Tina in a million places, including my e-mail address,

I still get, “Thanks Tiana!” Sooo… I’m considering doing the Twitter approach, where I just respond to coworkers who call me the wrong name with the wrong name. Like:. Chuck: Thanks, Tiana. Tina: No problem, Chad!. Jessica: Hi Tiara!. Tina: Good morning, Jennifer!

Would I be the a**hole if I did this? I know it’s passive aggressive, but every form of polite correction hasn’t worked, and I feel really disrespected by this, so I may as well have some fun with it.

Check out how the community responded:

aliquilts71 −  NTA, I’d go for Becky and Todd.

bonniefoxx −  You seem chill, I like you. NTA.

[Reddit User] −  i love it but i think it has to be mad specific, like if it’s someone who has indeed called you by the wrong name, especially consistently, then NTA, but if you just do it generally to everybody then yta.. doesn’t make it not funny though

prplehailstorm −  NTA. It might not be the most professional but neither is those people not bothering to learn your name

PeterFalksEye −  NTA sounds funny, go for it

RealisticSandwich −  I would say NTA, but… I also wouldn’t do it, just because it could be seen as unprofessional. If it was in your social life, totally. I’m Chinese/Filipino and have a pretty chill name for both my family and for my people,

which I shorten to ‘Lucy,’ and I still get people calling me ‘Lucky’ (?!) or assuming my last name is my first name. It’s infuriating but all you can really do at work is politely correct, over and over.

implodemode −  NTA but I am not sure they’d get the joke. You know them better than I do. I would get a name badge with TINA on it with the pronunciation spelling in brackets beneath it or maybe (Teena). And a happy face and a flower on it so they know it is good natured not bitchy.

ClothDiaperAddicts −  One of my friends is a lawyer. She is also black. As she likes to say, though, she’s not just black. She’s blackity black. Her name is not hard; it’s pronounced exactly like it looks. When some of her white co-workers started pulling those shenanigans,

she did exactly that: continuously call them by the wrong name until they got hers right. It took like two days. They no longer get her name wrong at the office.

[Reddit User] −  NTA. I work at a very racially diverse company, and I have one boss who will do exactly what your coworkers are doing (not to me, I’m white and have a basic white girl name). It drives ME nuts and I’m not even the one it’s happening to – you can only correct people so many times in an entire year before it’s borderline ridiculous.

I’d just be careful how often/what names you choose in case someone gets all upset about it – also, I know in most places HR doesn’t do s**t, but if you feel like they could be a resource to you, maybe go to them about this (only if you feel like anything would actually come of it though, every place is different and in my own company I’d feel comfortable doing that)

Editing this to add – is there anyone at your company that could potentially also be an ally for you and call people out? The boss I mentioned above continued to call someone by the wrong name until one day after he left her desk I stopped him and said “hey, her name is actually X”.

And he looked shocked that I said something & now calls her by the right name (like that was so hard, right?)

[Reddit User] −  NTA. Since they like Beyonce so much…. Spell my name, spell my name. It’s right there in the email. It’s not a hidden detail. The spelling doesn’t change