Bartle

variations

You know the problem. You call to reserve a table, or to book a ticket, or to arrange a haircut, and they ask you your name.

It only has six letters. B-A-R (pause) T-L-E. How hard can that be to write down? Yet why is it that when you arrive at the restaurant, the airport or the barber's, you just know they're expecting a BARTLEY or a BARTLES or a BARTON?

Being there in person doesn't help either. I was in a photo shop dropping off a film to be processed and the guy wrote down BARTEL.
    Me:    Er, that's T-L-E at the end there.
    Him:   That's what I've written.
    Me:    No, you've written T-E-L.
    Him:   That's what you said!

I took my elder daughter to the optician's for the first time to have her eyes tested. The woman wrote down BARTOE.
Me: No, not BARTOE, BARTLE.
Her: Are you sure it's not BARTOE?
Well gee, come to think of it...

BARTOE was particularly annoying because it isn't a real name at all, whereas BARTLE (obviously) is. Sadly, this was not an isolated incident. A few years ago, for example, there was a well-known professonal footballer with the surname BIRTLES, so naturally for a while I regularly found myself in "No, BARTLE, not BIRTLES" mode. BIRTLES is an uncommon name (there's only one in my local phone book), but at least it's a name. BIRTLE has no entries at all in my phone book, unsurprisingly as it's a very rare name (at least in England - there were only 183 of them in the 1881 census). That doesn't stop people preferring to believe that BIRTLE my surname even when I just spelled out B-A-R-T-L-E. What gives here?!

Sometimes, it's just an unhappy series of coincidences that leads to a mutation of the name. I once arrived at a computer factory in California to see a large board reading, "Welcome Dr Bartoo from England". The chap who had invited me was originally from Hong Kong, and although he himself wrote the name down correctly his phone call to the front desk was not received by someone attuned to Chinese accents.

For your grim satisfaction, here are some of the variations on the BARTLE name I've collected over the years from people who have moments earlier been told how to spell it correctly. It's probably not complete (I'd forgotten the horribly familiar BARTLET until my wife reminded me), but it's quite extensive nevertheless. I've included possible explanations for most of the entries.

Grit your teeth: some of these are painful...

BANTLE (couldn't read own writing?)
BARBER (surname)
BARDEL (confused with BARDELL)
BARDELL (surname)
BARDLE (American accent)
BARDLEY
BARKER (surname)
BARKLEY (a dog's name)
BARLETT
BARLEY (word)
BARLLE
BARLOW (surname)
BARNES (surname)
BARNET (town)
BARNETT (surname)
BARNEY (forename)
BARRATT (surname)
BARREL (word)
BARRET(confused with BARRETT)
BARRETT (surname)
BARTEE (surname of author of an electronics textbook)
BARTEL (surname)
BARTELE
BARTELL (surname)
BARTELLO
BARTELS
BARTER (word)
BARTHEL (Manchester United's then goalkeeper was BARTHEZ)
BARTHETT
BARTIL
BARTL
BARTLEBY (surname)
BARTLEE
BARTLES (from Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers)
BARTLET(confused with BARTLETT)
BARTLETT (surname)
BARTLEY (surname)
BARTLY (confused with BARTLEY)
BARTOE (written as a strong Essex accent would say BARTLE)
BARTOL
BARTON (surname)
BARTTLE
BARTELY
BARTERY
BARTREE
BASSETT (surname)
BATTERY (word)
BATTLE (word)
BATTY (surname)
BEADLE (surname)
BEETLE (word)
BELL (surname)
BERTLE
BIRTLE (confused with BIRTLES)
BIRTLES (surname)
BOTTLE (word, as in the famous Police song Message in a Bartle)
BRACLE
BRANSON (surname of businessman Richard Branson, with whom I share a forename)
BURTON (surname)
BARLLE
PEARTREE (there's a Peartree Road retail centre near where I live)
PARTLE
PATEL (surname; my brother gets this a lot, as he runs a corner shop)
SARKE

Here are some others recorded by Andrew Bartle:

ARTLE (were 6 letters too hard to remember?)
BARCLE
BARDOE (as in Bridget, the famous French actress)
BARLTE (letter transposition)
BARPLE (the Agatha Christie detective no-one remembers)
BARSALL
BART (Simpson?)
BARTALL (phonetical)
BARTAT (on Ilkley Moor?)
BARTIE (handwritten L mistaken for I)
BARTOLE (phonetical)
BARTOLL (phonetical)
BASTLE
BATRLETT (mistype of a wrong name!)
BERTEL
BORTLE
BRITTLE (word)
BUTTLE (written by a Chinese person)
DARTATT (what the?!)
DRATLE
PATTLE

Here are a couple from Ian Foster that he found while looking at transcripts of official registers in the course of genealogy research:

BARTHE
BARTTE

Richard Bartle (the artist, not me), reports:

BATIL (the Islamic concept of falsehood)

I'm sure that while many of these miscarriages of nomenclature will be all-too familiar to fellow BARTLEs, there will be those among you who have even more bizarre examples of jaw-dropping ignorance on the part of members of the general public. If you do have any such additional variations that can't be attributed to either your own mis-pronunciation or someone else's mis-hearing, please let me know and I'll add them to the list.