My husband's surname is like that. It's a corrupted French name and fairly unusual (around here anyway). People can't pronounce it when they read it and they can't spell it if he just says it, so he's gotten used to spelling it out too.
I mean, yeah, even with some common names you'll be asked for at least part of the spelling because that's probably -y on the end but could be -ie, or it may or may not have a silent h on the end, or other circumstances where you've got a common name with multiple common spellings, like John/Jon or Terry/Terri or Chris/Cris/Kris or whatever. And then there's shit like "Kharringtyn-McKyinleigh Khaybryn" where there is no way in Hell anyone will ever guess anywhere even close to the correct spelling so the kid will learn real damn fast that if they want any hope of having their name spelled right on anything, they'll just have to spell it all out up front.
I worked in a tourist attraction for about a year. We sold a shit ton of key chains and doodads with names on them. There were about 8 spellings of Kaitlyn with various Cs and Is and As, and constantly we would get people who couldn't find their stupid spelling of their stupid kid's stupid name. One person stands out, though. Zoey, but it wasn't spelled Zoey. Pronounced like it, and we had the cute little butterfly necklace that said Zoey on it, and one that said Zoe just in case. No, this woman for some incomprehensible reasons decided to spell her kid's name Zoei. And I was just like "sorry you spelled your kid's name wrong."
It's people like this that cause those name pins to have six variants of Kate/Caitlyn/Katherine, but not a single Nina in sight.
You can tell the name is Unique(TM) because it's pronounced exactly the same as this name that's frigging everywhere.
The fun thing with Kate/cate- name abundance is that 2/3 of the people I have slept with have the same name root with different spellings/nicknames.
My last name is Jewish so I was doomed from the start :P Everyone assumes my first name is Joan when I tell them and I'm like "where are you hearing this consonant sound?"
eight spellings of kaitlyn, two spellings of john, and two rows of Becky for no real reason, but not a single traditionally black or latinx name.
Also, like ten names that 90% of the people who have them are like 40 or older. No shortage of Debra, Nancy, or Janes, but holy shit you are screwed if you a latinx not named Maria.
I don't know if we celebrate, or fight to the death over being the board official Nina. (Technically Ninotchka, but I always go by Nina and have considered changing my name to Nina proper)
I dont do well in fights... can we call it a draw? Or celebrate, we should celebrate! I never find people with the same name as me ^^ My actual name is two names w/o a hyphen so people get confused when it comes to paperwork but it does start with Nina and so thats how i intro myself ^^
you know those word clouds you can make out of your twitter feed with your most-used phrases? if you could do that with irl speech mine would just be a big "no, with a K" in the middle surrounded by various swear words
My last name gets an extra letter thrown on the end of it by people who have to put it into systems I got my card that says i took the Safely Serve People Alcohol (tm) program, i wrote my last name in block capitals, one letter per square, and it still came back with an extra wrong letter that someone hallucinated should be at the end of it Edit: to clarify i wrote my name on the form once i finished the course, i didnt like. Scribble on the card itself