Unusual Names

[Walsingham]

Sometimes a foreign name alone, no matter if it sounds anything like a word in a more usual language, is a heavy burden to carry. Kids with extraorinary names are targets immediately.

 

That's true, although:

 

1. Being a target can toughen you up. My family were very very poor and we got stick for it.

2. Having a moderately weird name is great for people thinking you are unusual later in life. We used to fake our names to see how people reacted differently. I recommend it.

[Amentep]

Sometimes a foreign name alone, no matter if it sounds anything like a word in a more usual language, is a heavy burden to carry.

 

I wasn't there, but people I know told me about a lady whose name was pronounced one way here in US English but the pronounciation was wrong; it apparently was pronounced in a way that sounded like "whore" in English in her native non-English speaking country. For obvious reasons she never pointed out the error as the mispronounciation was quite benign as opposed to the correct pronounciation.

 

This all came to a head when a new employee who hailed from her home country came to work and rather famously tried to helpfully correct his coworker's mispronounciation by stating emphatically "She's a whore! Whore! Its WHORE!" during a meeting.

[taks]

my name is americanized hungarian, and rare. sure, some kids poked fun, but i grew up in a rather ethnic area so it was no big deal (european ethnic, mostly, i.e., heavy irish, german, italiian, polish, czech, etc.). besides, once i was 11 or so i was the tallest kid in class and nobody bothered me about anything anyway.

 

babysealkiller would be a bad name, too.

 

taks

[Shryke]

the name Humphrey always makes me giggle

 

hehehe... Humphrey...

[Moose]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/sussex/8049081.stm

 

Apparently people will name their kids after anything.

[HoonDing]

My surname features two "Y" and people have been mispronouncing & misspelling it for as long as I remember. In fact, I'm not 100% sure how to pronounce it myself.

[Walsingham]

My surname features two "Y" and people have been mispronouncing & misspelling it for as long as I remember. In fact, I'm not 100% sure how to pronounce it myself.

 

It's your damn name. I suggest you decide how it should be pronounced.

[Gfted1]

Being Italian my surname has a double R and is liberally sprinkled with vowels for flavor. Very very few people pronounce it correctly the first time.

[Trenitay]

Silly people. I have a nice, simple name. Nobody has ever mispronounced my name.

[Amentep]

Being Italian my surname has a double R and is liberally sprinkled with vowels for flavor. Very very few people pronounce it correctly the first time.

 

I've got a two vowel combo in my last name that no one pronounces correctly (even when they ask and I tell them how its pronounced).

[Shryke]

i get people mistakenly calling me by my surname, because it's also a first name

[Walsingham]

Shryke Henry Theophilus Susan

[Meshugger]

Friend of mine knew a fella named 'Taika Protagonist', where Taika means Magic in finnish. Of course the friend wanted to call him out on his strange name and asked where he was originally from, or where his parents live and so on. He simply answered that it his origins could not be named since it would be impossible to define the undefineable. He was probably one with the cosmos or something.

[ShadySands]

I have uncommon first and middle names but most people mess up the spelling on my last name. Even then they usually just guess the wrong vowel as I commonly see it as both Jenson and Jensen, which is what I use.

[Walsingham]

When I worked in customer service we had a guy who used to make periodic requests to order things without a credit card. These were routinely refused under standard terms, but we became curious. We enquired as to why he had none, and he replied that the bank wouldn't give him one. This was where I was called in, since I had worked previously in a bank. very swiftly it was established that they couldn't give him one because he had no credit history because he only had one name, and no proof of identity.

 

Long story short we established that this poor bloke had been raised by hippies who insisted he should never have a square thing like an identity and raised him completely off the grid. He was very peculiar but he seemed genuinely a victim of his upbringing rather than a proponent. So we helped talk him through the process of getting a birth certificate, passport, bank account, and finally his first purchase.

 

One more reason I hate hippies. Its the sheer hypocrisy of forcing their views on a child.

[Aristes]

That's the funny story of the day. Haha "square thing like an identity" Oh, that's great.

 

Of course, all parents force their views on children. That ain't just a hippy thang!

[Gorth]

One more reason I hate hippies. Its the sheer hypocrisy of forcing their views on a child.

Maybe his parents were Indonesian? My colleagues tell me that it quite common to have a single name there

[Enoch]

Wals' post reminded me of this WaPo story from a few months back: Facebook doesn't like people named "Batman"

 

After several failed exchanges with customer service, Miranda Batman -- no relation to Caitlin -- of Indiana decided her real name wasn't worth pursuing. Facebook had requested she fax a copy of her driver's license, and she worried about security.

 

Instead, Miranda signed up for an account as "Miranda Stewart," using her husband's bachelor surname. (He took on Batman when they got married because, well, wouldn't you?) Facebook immediately accepted the fake name. "Which is so ironic," the nursing student says. "Because that's what they're trying to" prevent. The only way for Miranda to overcome accusations of fraud was by . . . committing fraud.

[Shryke]

Shryke Henry Theophilus Susan

 

you actually got my middle name right!

[CoM_Solaufein]

Just be lucky you didn't have wacked out hippie parents. Just look at the names that Frank Zappa named his kids.

[Shryke]

what's wrong with Moonunit?

[CoM_Solaufein]

Dweezil.

[Walsingham]

Shryke Henry Theophilus Susan

 

you actually got my middle name right!

 

Ah, but you see, with your basic honesty you had to be a Henry, but girls would never go crazy for a Henry, hence your middle name. *puff puff*

[Shryke]

and it wouldn't really fit with our everyday celebration

 

it was all started by a girl i was sleeping with about 2 years ago, but it seems to have stuck and now all my friends and even some people i've only just met do it

 

with my birthday being the only exception, "everyday is hug the **** day"

[crakkie]

I made an Ansel and a Clotilde. An Imogen is currently in production.

 

My wife is cajun and I love photography.