A woman from the US has revealed how her mother misspelling her name on her birth certificate has actually paid dividends in her adult life, particularly as she pursued a corporate career path.
Sacha Rady, a 26-year-old realtor from Atlanta, Georgia, went viral on TikTok after she shared how her mother's mistake has worked in her favour.
In the video, which has since been viewed over 1.1 million times, Rady - who's forename is pronounced 'Sasha' - explained that her mother had intended to spell her name with an 'S' instead of a 'C'.
She had wanted to name her daughter after the 'Sasha doll', a toy created by Swiss artist and dollmaker Sasha Morgenthaler that was produced in Germany and the United Kingdom in the late 1960s, Rady said.
"My mom spelled my name wrong on my birth certificate, and here's why it was actually a huge blessing when I was in corporate America," she told her viewers.
"Growing up my mom was super poor. She could never afford a Sasha doll. So she said she was going to name her first daughter 'Sasha'. These dolls were spelled S-A-S-H-A, which is the female way to spell Sasha."
However, when filling in her daughter's birth certificate, her mother accidentally spelled the name 'Sacha' - a gender-neutral name of French and Russian origin, perhaps most commonly associated with Borat actor Sacha Baron Cohen. In Russia, it can also act as a shortened version of the name 'Alexander'.
"When I was in corporate America, when I was emailing people, everybody thought I was a man," Rady said. "They would reply back, 'Dear Sir', 'Hello, Sir', and I just let that shit ride.
"I'm a pretty dry and direct person, and if a female is dry and direct in the corporate world, you are a bitch," she added. "But, since I was a man, it was just another day in the office."
Rady's story quickly caught people's attention, amassing over 104,000 likes and almost 2000 comments at the time of writing. A number of viewers also came forward to share their own similar stories - including others named Sasha.
"THE SAME THING HAPPENED WITH ME! But my mom spelled it Sacha for school papers. It sucked having to change it again," one said.
"My mom did the same thing. She named me after an actress but spelled my name Sacha instead of Sasha. Used to it now but hated it growing up," another wrote, with a third adding: "GIRL! I get you. I should have been Yudi but they spelled it Yuri so now I'm a Russian man instead of a Latin woman."
One mum also admitted to spelling her son's name incorrectly, revealing she spelt the moniker as 'Christain' instead of 'Christian' on his birth certificate.
"In Russian there are two names like that actually - Alexander (male) and Alexandra (female), for both we use a shorter nickname Sasha," another weighed in, backing up Rady's story.
"My brother was legally 'Tervor' until he was 16," said another, with one user writing: "My teacher had a girl named 'Angel' but it was spelled 'Angle' on the birth certificate."
