The Hospital in Bristol was in hot water with the CQC after allegations from staff that it was common practice to ask staff to use their western name, if their natural name was too foreign sounding.

My thoughts are two things:

On a practicable basis it’s important to be able to call out to your colleague with a name other than ‘thingy’ or something that is really difficult to pro-nounce like some sort of tongue twister.

There are plenty of non western names which are so much more familiar these days.

Tarique, Ahmed, Hassan, Hussian, Atif, Zuzanna

Joy, Blessing, Qian (Chén), Pitor, Kwame, Hadiza, Nimish

I disagree that individuals should be made to feel their natural name is unaccepted, although sometimes people have shortened versions of them e.g. Fal instead of Faraji.

If you go into your local Subway for a sandwich you’ll understand that actually everyone’s name is lovely, honey, dear, love ………when you’re serving the public at lunchtime!!!