My pretty name

My name is not a very common name. This has become more and more apparent to me the older I get.
It seems everywhere you go, you are now required to give your name. And I am seeing this more as Elijah is growing and I am attempting to register him for programs and playtimes.

One such place is just in a local mall. There is a really cool free "Kids at Play" place with a soft cushy floor and softish foamy vehicles and animals and structures for babies, toddlers and preschoolers to climb on, jump off of, slide down and run around. Whenever we go, I wonder how my name will get spelled.
Usually it gets spelled something like 'Donnell' or 'Donel' and occassionally 'Donelle'. What I don't get is why they use the male spelling 'Don' instead of the female spelling 'Dawn'. So, I have started to, on occassion, just shorten my name to avoid any confusion and tell them my name is just 'Dawn'. And you know what? Those people spell my pretend name 'Don'.

I had to return something to Canadian Tire last week. I tried to speak as clearly and deliberately as I could when telling the customer service representative my name. When I got the return receipt, I discovered that Canadian Tire thinks my name is 'Dona'.

The other day I was in Old Navy trying on some clothes. I do that from time to time. I have this gift card with some money still left on it, so why not hey? They also require your name to write it on the outside of the changing room door.
I told him my name was 'Dawn' and he also proceeded to write 'Don'. He got to the 'o' and I said, "Oh...it's a-w-n, not o-n."
"Oh!" he said, "Awn!" and he wrote A-w-n.
Then he looked me up and down as if he just wanted to see what a girl named Awn would look like.

I don't know why it bothers me so much that complete strangers just can't get my name spelled right. What's funny about it all, is on the times that I am patient enough to stand there and spell it for them, they write it out correctly and almost always without fail (if it's a woman) respond with "Oh...what a pretty name!"
No one thinks Donel or Donnel or Donelle or Donnel or Donnelle is a pretty name, or even Don or Dona or Awn; but Dawnelle, now that's a pretty name!

I won't even get started on the correct pronounciation of my name. It shouldn't be hard to pronounce...it's pretty straight forward, but the general population has an extremely hard time with it. But that's a rant I'll go on some other time.