South Africa’s under-fire top cop goes by the name of Khehla Sitole. But it’s surprising how his last name gets misspelt, with the culprits being not only several of the country’s major media outlets but also some of the civil society organisations that want him out of office for one alleged misdeed or the other. To them, he is Khehla Sithole.

The soft-spoken fellow is not the only prominent South African whose name is frequently misspelt in the media. Romeo Kumalo – the corporate executive who is married to beauty-queen-turned-entrepreneur Basetsana Kumalo – comes to mind. To some in the media, and others, this power couple’s surname is Khumalo. I could go on.

While some let the butchering of their names roll off their back, others do take offence. I recall, in 2018, columnist Kabelo Chabalala expressing his unhappiness in a piece in The Star about the frequent misspelling of his name. “My name is not Khabelo, it is not Kablo and it is definitely not Kabalo. It’s so frustrating, because these wrong spellings of my name are from people who would have received an email from me with the correct spelling.”

If it’s any consolation, our journalists – and South Africans generally – are not the only culprits. In a recent piece, Peter Mwaura, public editor of the Nation, one of Kenya’s more popular daily newspapers, was forced to apologise to unimpressed readers for publishing, over a period, stories in which the names of politicians and other high-profile citizens were spelt variously. One reader wrote in, wondering if Supreme Court Judge Smokin Wanjala was the same person as Smoking Wanjala. And what was the real name of the chairperson of a political party called the United Democratic Alliance? Was it Johnson Muthama, Johnston Muthama or Johnstone Muthama?

Mwaura conceded that the Nation had spelt Muthama’s first name incorrectly hundreds of times. I am not exaggerating.

But how do journalists – and others who earn a living through written communication – get people’s names wrong?

The reasons are numerous, one being an assumption by the journalist that a particular name is spelt in a certain way. Take the commissioner of the South African Police Service, for example. An overwhelming majority of his namesakes spell their family name as Sithole. So, a not-so-diligent journalist is likely to spell the commissioner’s surname “the usual way”. The same goes for the Kumalos.

Misspelling a person’s name can also be put down to mispronunciation. I can vouch for that. Quite a few people do mispronounce my surname, and they tend to also get the spelling incorrect. Fortunately, I am not a newsmaker, otherwise I would be like Muthamba, the Kenyan politician, whose first name has been misspelt more than 100 times in the Nation. Mind you, that newspaper is one of the more respected in the East African country. One wonders what happens at newspapers where the bar is at a much lower level.

Indeed, the misspelling of people’s names in the media and by communication practitioners generally is indicative of the lowering of standards in our trade – remember, I don’t agree that journalism is a profession?

The sad reality is that the misspelling of names is a spreading malaise that afflicts even those in the Western world. An example: in January 2017, the White House sent out an invitation to a news conference that was to be addressed by President Donald Trump and “UK Prime Minister Teresa May”. Of course, the British politician spells her first name thus: Theresa. Teresa May is a completely different person who is not known for her involvement in British politics. Instead, the now 55-year-old is notorious in the UK as a porn ‘star’.

So, there is a lot in a name.