What's in a Name?

[dawn_felagund]

Random note:

Okay, as of five minutes ago, we are going to Bermuda! In March! Bobby and I needed to go somewhere to finish our open water dives for our scuba certifications, and we had promised my sister-in-law Erin to pay for part of a trip someplace cool with us for her 21st birthday. We'd originally considered going back to Puerto Rico, but in

Comments

[sinneahtes]

Heehee! I've been thinking that if I ever get married, I'd probably want to hyphenate my last name to keep my family identity while assuming my husband's as well... but... well, you've actually seen my last name, so I bet you can guess how much fun that'd give me before I even have to say how much trouble I have with people pronouncing and spelling it now! ;)

But back when I worked at The Pharmacy, it never seemed to be all that much trouble to find prescriptions where the last names were hyphenated... they didn't even have to explain there were hyphens unless their prescriptions were missing from the bins and I took down the spellings of their names to search the computers... *wonders what the deal with some people is*

[dawn_felagund]

I actually thought of you when writing this post! I thought, "If I go through all this, I wonder what Niki puts up with!"

Because--you've seen my real name--I don't think it's that hard. And I'm even cool with it being mispronounced but when people randomly drop half of it because they refuse to grasp the concept of a hyphenated name, that annoys me. We chose our name quite intentionally, and I like us both to be called by it. (And I'll even make reasonable exceptions: Our hyphenated name is too long to fit on Bobby's hockey jersey, so he uses his "maiden name." So, see, I'm not too radical!)

[oloriel]

Oh my! Now I hope I pronounce your name correctly ;) I suspect I do, because I'm uncreative and just pronounce the vowels the way they'd likely be pronounced in other words with a similar sound pattern, but then, with English, you never know ;)

I don't have a middle initial - my parents decided that it was such a hassle for a child to have a long time as, much later, the kid would have to sign on their driving license with their full name (i.e. first name, second names, last name) and, accordingly, on all other traffic-related documents. Instead, they gave me a 10-letter first name, so if they had named me, say, Anna Lena or Eva Maria or some other fairly common German combination, I'd actually have had to write less.
[By now they abolished the "absolutely full name" rule anyway. And my mother has three first names - Ursula Hedwig Elsa, after her dad's nickname for her mom, her paternal grandmother and her maternal grandmother - AND belatedly hyphenated her name when Germany allowed people to have "husband's last name - birth last

[dawn_felagund]

You know, I don't mind too much when people simply say it wrong, particularly my husband's half, which is an odd name in the US. But when they decide to simply drop half of the name because they don't understand or don't like hyphenated names, that is really rude to me. Also, I don't really understand how people can get my half wrong, but when I was a kid and it was my full last name, people did, all of the time. You've seen my name, so you know that it's a common noun in the English language! It's kind of like your predicament, in having your name so close to können: It's a common enough word that you'd think native speakers would have no problem with it. Not the case

[ssotknapsack]

Receptionist (annoyed): You have a hyphenated name and a middle initial?

LMAO How dare you?! This made me laugh so hard.

I'm still trying to figure out why the hyphenated name thing is so difficult in the 21st century. Okay, there are variables, like (mostly women) taking their maiden name as a middle name, or which name comes first? But at the end of the day it's just a name, so it shouldn't be that hard to get right and it is sooo important to get it right. The Uncle Wodie point illustrated that perfectly, and I think his one last name was much more difficult than your hyphenated last name.

Kirsty and I were talking about "name respect" the other day because there's a bit of a common woman on Celebrity Big Brother who simply cannot pronounce one of her housemates' names. The HM in question is an Indian woman called Shilpa, and it's not rocket science to figure out how to say that

[frenchpony]

Just a drive-by iconing in response to the Celebrity Big Brother story. Pay it no mind. . .

[dawn_felagund]

I think we're looking to the end of summer, August or so. Though let me check with Bobby to be sure before you commit to anything. :)

Yes, I'd have to deck someone who chose to call me "Oi" in lieu of learning to pronounce my last name. It annoys me enough that no one can say "Kirsty." "Oh, but you s-i-l's name is so hard to say!"

"Ummm...no. It isn't. Ker. Stee. Kirsty. *doh!*" You have to give people credit for trying and for wanting to say it correctly, but after a half-dozen times when a native English speaker can't say "Kirsty"...yeah.

[ssotknapsack]

I'd tell them to think of Kirstie Alley, but then:

a.) I hear her called Kristie all the time too, and
b.) then they'd misspell Kirsty's name so we'd be right back where we started!

Poor Kirsty was called so many things at Thanksgiving. I don't know how she didn't have an identity crisis on the spot!

[dawn_felagund]

And here I thought that hyphenated names were more common and thus more apt to be understood in Germany! ;)

I thought of you too, when writing this post, because I think we've had this discussion before. It seems a bit odd to me that people who read language as it is generally written have trouble with hyphens. When they see "fresh-brewed iced tea," do they call it just "brewed iced tea?" Does the hyphen indicate some kind of pass on the word preceding it?

And now I'm tempted to rant about how no one in the US can use a hyphen anyway, so it's always "fresh brewed iced tea," but I have to leave for work, so you're spared! :^D

[rhapsodythebard]

I can think of worse fates than doing my check-out dives on a coral reef in crystal-clear, warm water. Better than a murky, cold quarry certainly!

Sweeet!!!!

Because I don't like to use my real name in public online posts but want to capture the effect of how my real last name(s) actually sound, I am using the alias Rawls-Loomis as my last name. Creepy stalker lurkers, don't get excited. You won't find out anything by searching Dawn Marie Rawls-Loomis on your stalker sites.

*sporfle* I am the same btw ^-^

Did you know we have almost the same second name?
Maria or Marie (my mom's name) :)

Receptionist: Do you have a middle initial?
Dawn: Yes. M.
Receptionist (annoyed): You have a hyphenated name and a middle initial?

It took me a while when I found out what you meant with hyphenated name...

Why didn't she ask for birthday & postcal code and house nr? Sounds more efficient to me.

Please do your friends and colleagues with hyphenated names a favor. Say/spell their names correctly. Both names; yes, they both count for equal weight

[korrolaire]

lol, I can understand your frustration, my last name is Nyitray - its Hungarian in origin and often mis-spelled.

Its often spelled Nitray, Nytrau, Nytray, Myitray...

[dawn_felagund]

I was griping to a Croatian friend of mine the other day about my name. I sent her my last name in an email, and she wrote back, "That's not so hard. How can people say it incorrectly?"

And she sent her last name too...in an image file because it had so many characters that my computer probably wouldn't display correctly!

So I feel kind of like an eejit for complaining about my name in light of that...though it does make it all the weirder that people still mispronounce it.