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A 61-year-old bloke has recently discovered he’s been spelling his name wrong his whole life after seeing a copy of his birth certificate. You can see a clip of his reaction to finding out here:
Yep, according to the official document, Allan Grainger, who’s been spelling his name with two L's his entire life, is actually called Alan Grainger - adding a whole new meaning to the term 'take the L'.
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Naturally, over the course of his six decades on the planet, Allan has racked up a fair amount of legal paperwork, including his driving licence and wedding certificate, which both have his incorrect name on.
And in a more permanent move, he’s also got two tattoos with the misspelling on - unllucky, pall.
As you can imagine, the dad-of-two was left dumbfounded after the mix-up was discovered by his family this weekend.
Allan reckons the mistake must be down to whoever filled in the birth certificate, as he insists his folks always spelt with the double L.
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Allan - or Alan to give him his legal name - said: “I couldn’t believe it. I’ve been spelling my name like that all my life.
“When my daughter said that I thought she was winding me up. I was dumbfounded and just couldn't believe it.
“I think it was a mistake on the birth certificate because my mum wouldn’t let me go through school spelling my name like that.
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“I’ve got two tattoos with my name on it, one on my arm and one on my hand.
“I’m not going to start changing it now, I don’t see what difference it would make now.”
Daughter Mya Grainger shared a video of the discovery on TikTok, in which she showed the birth certificate with the name section listed as 'Alan'.
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The camera then pans to Alan’s slightly confused looking face, before zooming in on his hand to reveal his tattoo, which is spelt 'Allan'.
Bizarrely, it turns out that our friend Allan isn’t the only person to spot a mistake on their birth certificate.
Commenting on the TikTok video, one person said: “I've always written my name as one word only to find out four years ago my name is hyphenated.”
Another wrote: “My nan only found out her name was actually Jean not Margaret when she needed her birth certificate to get married.”
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Might be worth digging out those birth certificates, guys.
Claire Reid