What’s in a Name? Is it Important to get it right? (yep it’s-Respect the Reviewer…again!)

I have a question:  Is it important to get someone’s name right when requesting something from them like a review?

Today I’ve received another review request, nothing strange about that, until it came to the name at the top of the request.  Now I’m used to people addressing me with no name, even dear reviewer or dear blogger, I’ve been called thehappymeerkat, C, Meerkat but until now I’ve never had an author get my name wrong.  I wasn’t sure to make of it and wondered if this was a big deal to just me or anyone else?

Remember that Respect the Reviewer article I published a while back?  Here’s point 5: Get the name right! – This might sound ridiculously obvious but make sure if you’re going to send a request for review that you get their name right. – A personal request to me is always appreciated and I love it when people call me by name rather than my username or website name, it shows they’ve taken the time to read both my about page and review submissions page, however make sure if you are going to address someone specific that you get their name right. I’ve had authors call me different names, mix me up with others they’ve seen. It shows that once again they can’t be bothered to take the time to read my about and submissions pages which doesn’t take long. If in doubt as to what to call someone it’s better to say ‘Hi’ and nothing more than give the wrong name.

So this I thought was important.  But now I wonder if it is just me?

I’ve had Chinese sellers get my name wrong but I’ve always put that down to a weird language barrier and their habit of mass emailing people.  But someone who speaks English, who’s native tongue is English and who is an author looking for a review?  Well surely they should get your name right?

Why am I going on about this.  Because the first review request since my ban/cautiousness about indie author requests starts with ‘Hi there Kent’….Kent?

Ok, I admit, I come from Kent in the south east of the UK, but that is information only found on Goodreads and amazon.  It doesn’t appear on my facebook page, twitter or this blog, so where on earth did this author get the idea to call me Kent?

Were they referring to where I live, or did they mix me up with some guy who’s actually called Kent?  Did they try to call me by a surname – would my first name be Clark?  (ok bad attempt at funny)  But the fact is I’ve been called KENT!  So this author shows a great attention to detail, the ability to spend two minutes, nay two seconds to check out my name on my about me page (it’s the first line on that page), but instead they choose to call me Kent instead.  Not a great start and do I really feel like taking the time to carefully read someone else’s work if they can’t carefully read a few sentences of mine?

Any thoughts?

Reviewers- do you care if authors call you the right name?

Authors- do you care about calling someone by their name?  Or are reviewer names unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

Anyone else?  Any thoughts?  Do you agree the name is important?  Wouldn’t no name be better than the wrong name?