Friday Five

[nwhyte]

I have never done this before, but agirlnamedluna has inspired me:

1. Are you named after anyone? If so, explain.

Yes. There were a large number of Nicholases in the Whyte family tree, going back to Sir Nicholas Whyte/White, an Irish judge in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, who died while a prisoner in the Tower of London.

2. Do you have your children's names

Comments

[flemmarde]

hahaha... imagine being called fritter my wig :)

i have the exact opposite of you problem with the first name. i always introduce myself as Barb as the full version of my name was only ever associated with getting into trouble as a child. but many people don't listen, extend my name and take the first syllable off my surname to compensate for not listening.

and then there's the problem of the correct pronunciation of my shortened first name sounding like "beard" in french, which causes all the africans to call me "bar", which is kind of disconcerting, though i'm used to it now.

[nwhyte]

When I first met you, I was sure there must be a missing "r" between the first and second letters of your surname; like the chewing gum. I guess I'm not the only one?

[flemmarde]

would that i were the heir to the chewing gum fortune!

but sadly no... just left with a weird surname that is persistently misspelt and was routined taunted as a child, and no fortune to compensate.

though i'm mildy pleased with the fact that my surname means "forest clearing infested with beetles"

can't get much more spectacular than that :)

[nwhyte]

"forest clearing infested with beetles"

Yes, rather that than "having a twisting or snake-like or worm-like motion" which it would be with only slight spelling changes and the same pronunciation!

[burkesworks]

And I've seen an Albanian interview where I was "Nikolas Uajt" - even though it is theoretically the same alphabet

What is it about the Albanian language and the way that foreign proper names are always rewritten phonetically, for example "Xhorxh Bush" and his vice-president "Riçard Çeni", or famous football clubs "Mançester Junajtid", "Çelsi" (featuring England stars Xho Kol and Xhon Terri) and "Njukasëll"?

[lamentables]

It never ceases to amaze me that one can introduce oneself as fullname and instantly be greeted as abbreviatedname. Happens to me all the time and it's so RUDE.

[talvalin]

One way around this is to have an unpronounceable first name and surname that cannot be shortened in an obvious way. As you can imagine, this has problems all of its own.

In case you were wondering, I'm browsing nhw's previously answered interview questions hence the reply to an old comment

[lamentables]

Neither of the surnames I've had have been, in my opinion, particularly odd (and my first was pretty common in the area in which I grew up) but they have still presented a surprising number of pronunciation and spelling difficulties.

And I'm glad you explained, because I was thinking I'd fallen into some kind of time warp.

Also you've reminded me that I was going to add you to my friends list. I shall do that now.

[pnh]

"People call me 'Nick' even though I always introduce myself and refer to myself as 'Nicholas'"

I'm embarrassed to realize that I've probably done that to you, despite the fact that I always refer to myself as "Patrick" and dislike being called "Pat." How appalling.

[nwhyte]

's OK, you're forgiven. Just don't do it again!

[xipuloxx]

Oh, I know what it's like to have your name misspelled. I don't want to put my surname on LJ, but suffice to say it's neither English nor Irish and even though it's only 5 letters and pronounced as it's spelled, growing up in Northern Ireland all I usually got was "What? What sort of name's that? Where's that from? How do you spell/pronounce that?" God, it's annoying. And then there's all those irritating misspellings on letters and suchlike.

But I'm not at all bothered by familiar forms of my given name, though there's not much you can do with "Mark". Still, my mum sometimes calls me "Marky" and my sisters often call me "Marco". But hey, that's close enough.

[nwhyte]

Ah, but I bet many people pronouncing your surname put a "b" or "p" in the middle...