The World Doesn't Know How To Spell My Name

And It, Like Everything Else, Doesn't Matter

Since the day I was air-lifted out of my mother’s womb (c-section), wrapped in a swaddling cloth, and given the name Payton, folks from all walks of life have struggled to spell it. Payton is a fairly common English name. Its pronunciation is obvious, and there aren’t many variations in its spelling. I’m only familiar with 2. Payton and Peyton. But everybody else must only be familiar with the latter.

There is one man to blame for this misassumption. A man I grew to hate by the age of 4. That would be former NFL quarterback and forehead advocate Peyton Manning. He is by far the most famous Pa(e)yton alive and will continue to be until the day I am air-dropped six feet under (proper funeral burial). Had Peyton Manning never been extracted (normal birth), I don’t think as many people would have assumed the “e.”

I was 4 years old when I began noticing that people would always spell my name with an “e.” And the few adults who were courteous enough to ask would gasp in shock when I told them I spelled it with an “a.” It didn’t help that I had family in Indiana, and while I wasn’t tracking the data back then, I know that I found my name misspelled far more often when I visited that horrific state. People would ask if I was named after him, and I would spit at their torsos in return.

Peyton Manning won his first Super Bowl with the Indianapolis Colts in 2007, the same year I was 4. As he hoisted the trophy in the air, I hoisted my Nerf Gun at the TV. This victory only solidified his name amongst every household in the U.S., and I was furious.

As a youngster, I had plenty of energy to correct all the people in my life. I was proud of the “a” in my name, and I wanted everyone to recognize it. When I began elementary school, a new battle began. Before, my fight was with the adults, but now, it was with the children. Children weren’t accidentally misspelling my name; they were purposely spreading misinformation.

A claim began to circulate that the two different spellings of Pa(e)yton were based on gender.

Peyton’s play with trucks and Payton’s like to get their ears pierced if you catch my drift. - Your Uncle

This claim was baseless. A clever ploy by children to call me a girl indirectly. Would this smear campaign bother me now? Of course not. But as a 9-year-old, I would have rather been called a democrat (the ultimate diss in a conservative Christian school).

Luckily, there was one person, one woman, one celebrity who had my back. And to this day, she has no idea how grateful I am for her. I’m referring to my first celebrity crush and star of Disney Channel’s hit show Jessie, Peyton List. If List and Manning both spell their name with an “e,” and List is a she and Manning is a he, then clearly the spelling was never gender-based.

I didn’t know this unique spelling would lead to such difficulty for my poor boy. I just thought that Peyton Steven Burdette would have too many “e’s” in it. - Payton’s 5’1 mother

As middle school came around, these ridiculous attacks subsided, but the misspellings never did, and I was out of gas.

Why does it matter if people spell my name right? I’m not filling out legal documents. Do I find happiness in correcting other people? Does the spelling of my name even matter?

I wrestled with these questions and determined the answer was no. If someone asked how I spelled my name, I would tell them, but when they assumed the “e,” I would let them. This was a pathetic defeat. I quit fighting for myself and all the Paytons around the world. But it didn’t take long for this dismay to turn into hooray.

By high school, I would purposely misspell my name at coffee shops and Chick-fil-a’s. I found it funny to watch other people be wrong. My friends would chuckle at the sight of my misspelled name, which brought us closer together. It also shifted the power dynamic. I was in control of how my name was spelled.

Why was this so amusing? When you live in the Midwest and go to the same school for 12 years, not much is.

This amusement climaxed at 16 years old. I was beginning to make videos online, and wanted to promote these videos on Instagram. I didn’t want to promote them on my personal account, so I created a spam account.

My original username was payton_burdette, so for my spam, I thought it would be funny to make my username peyton_burdette. This proved to the world once and for all that the spelling of my name is completely up to me. I am the one in control.

This move backfired. Once again, I was not tracking the data, but I know for a fact that the creation of this account DID NOT lead to an increase in people misspelling my name. But it DID lead to an increase in my friends and family not taking accountability.

Unbeknownst to me, many of the people I’d known for years still weren’t sure how to spell my first name. And this new account gave them culpable deniability. Now, it was no longer their fault for not knowing how to spell my name; it was my fault for confusing them by having 2 Instagram accounts.

Now, at the age of 22, there are only 2 types of people I typically interact with. Very close friends/longtime coworkers and strangers. The first group knows how to spell my name, and with the second group, I no longer find that same amusement in watching them be incorrect. If someone spells “Peyton” on my cup, I no longer get a kick out of it like I once did.

I haven’t replaced this amusement with something else. Yesterday I spent 2 hours filling out legal documents for my new lease.

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