Sean Moncrieff: People act like I chose this surname, just to be difficult or pretentious

I have spent most of my life spelling out my surname to people, who, as often as not, get it wrong anyway. Mocrieff. MacCreff. Moncrease. Monkeef. Monkeyeff. People have pronounced it in a French or German accent. Or VERY LOUDLY.

Luckily, a few decades in the media have greatly ameliorated the problem, though it still happens: if someone emails to give out about me, they always, always spell my name incorrectly.

This curse has been passed on to my children who, as well as having to do the spelling, also have to occasionally cope with “anything to that annoying bollix off the radio?”

“Yes, he’s my Dad.”

Pork chops with garlic, fennel and lemon

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Cinnamon buns with maple cream cheese icing: A sweet and sticky autumn treat

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Cinnamon buns with maple cream cheese icing

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Do you know how long your beauty products last?

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“Oh, he’s great.”

My surname hasn't proven to be any great impediment to my life and, for the most part, I've enjoyed having what was, for Ireland, a distinctive surname

Sometimes, people studiously avoid using my name altogether. Some years ago, a man approached me and accused me of being your man off the radio. I could see his lips involuntarily making an M sound, then resisting the urge: an action he repeated so much that he became greatly agitated. Eventually, he blurted out that he’d like me to play a request, then walked off without identifying himself. This was at my father’s funeral.

Obviously, I didn't choose Moncrieff, but when I think about it, I have at times acted like it was my own fault for having such a weird surname. If, say, booking a restaurant or a colonic irrigation, I still occasionally use Herself's surname to avoid having to spell out my own. Invariably, my name sparks a reaction. From the genuinely curious – where does that come from? (It's Scottish). To a few who have heard it before via Proust or Oscar Wilde. But for the most part, the reaction has been a vaguely annoyed "what?": like I chose this name, just to be difficult or pretentious, or that it's not my real name at all.

Now, I can't claim that these reactions were, to use the modern term, micro-aggressions, (though the phrase actually dates from the 1970s). It was probably due to laziness or the vague discomfort we all feel when confronted with something that's strange to us. Anyway, pity about me. My surname hasn't proven to be any great impediment to my life and, for the most part, I've enjoyed having what was, for Ireland, a distinctive surname. And I'm far from unique in this. If your surname is Ó Muireadhaigh or Mac Giolla Mháirtín, you've probably had similar difficulties.

It has helped me to be a little mindful in my work: all the time I have to pronounce unfamiliar names. So, I write them out phonetically and try to sound like I’ve said it a million times before. I get it right about 50 per cent of the time. And that’s me grading myself. Plus points for effort.

Refusing to even attempt to pronounce or properly spell a name is, at best, a lack of basic courtesy. At worst, it's something darker

In multi-cultural western societies, name-mangling has become infused with politics. Right-wing commentators in the US routinely mispronounce the name Kamala Harris; the Kamala part, that is. The Irish-Zambian singer Denise Chaila rather ingeniously constructed a song around how to say her surname properly, while tying it in to her experience of being regarded as the Trócaire Kid.

The song points to a new reality in Ireland and many other countries: that there’s no such thing as a weird name, no more than there’s no such thing as an “accent”. We all have accents. We all have names. Refusing to even attempt to pronounce or properly spell a name is, at best, a lack of basic courtesy. At worst, it’s something darker.

Moncrieff, by the way, comes from the Scots Gaelic Monadh Croibhe, meaning Hill of the Sacred Bough, or more prosaically, Hill of the Tree. The Hill itself is located in Perthshire and a sign there will tell you that my clan are descendants of Niall of the Nine Hostages; without mentioning that Niall might not have actually existed. But because the name is a translation, there are at least four ways of spelling it. The people who give out about me often get it right after all.