Imagine If This Were Your Name...

And I thought my name was bad

I had a Phuc Lam in my Jr high school.  And students in my classes (one never showed up) named Will Barrow and Salvatore (Sal to his friends) Menella.

In college, there was a guy named Hung Long in one of my classes.

I went to grade school with a Richard Head. Now what parent would do that to their kid?

When I was a kid there was a Phuc Hu in the phone book.

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Originally Posted by Patrick_S 

I went to grade school with a Richard Head. Now what parent would do that to their kid? 

Probably cousins of the people who named an ex-boss of mine "Richard Hare".  And yes, he did go by a nickname.  (He was once paged at an airport.  Hilarity ensued.) 

The second episode of News Radio opens with Matthew (Andy Dick) wrapping up a story with the words "...Amy Fisher, the so-called Long Island Lolita, who was also implicated in the case is currently serviving five to fifteen years in Albion Correctional Facility..." while a stunned-looking Bill (Phil Hartman) sits staring wordlessly at him.  When Matthew leaves the booth, he is told that he mispronounced "that guy's" name.  A few times.

"No, I didn't.  It's Joey Butta---" 

Dave (Dave Foley)  "No it ISN'T Matthew, It's, uh, Butta-foo-co. Butta-FOO-co" 

Matthew:  "Wha-  What did I say?"

Dave:  "Well, Matthew, of all the possible mispronunciations of that name, you seem to have stumbled upon asbolutely the worst one." 

Mr. James:  "Matthew, I'm just glad you didn't do a story about Forest Tucker." 

Regards,

Joe
 

I went to school with a Crystal Chandelier and my wife went to school with an Albe Damn.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joseph DeMartino 

Quote:

Probably cousins of the people who named an ex-boss of mine "Richard Hare".  And yes, he did go by a nickname.  (He was once paged at an airport.  Hilarity ensued.) 

 

 

That's funny.  I know a guy named Peter Hare.  And yes, the last name is pronounced "Hair".

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  BTW, did you ever notice that Peter O'Toole is a double phallic name? 

Regards,

Joe

My mom went to school with a couple of kids with the last name of Pop that their parents had the audacity to name the girl Loli and the the boy Soda.

A good friend of mine used to do a morning radio show and he would do a lot of fillers between songs. While reading one he came across the word

Fuque and he pronounced it phonectically. Needless to say that station manager called him up about 2 minutes later asking him "What the hell did you 

just say over the air?" 

We had a lady come in to deliver her third child and she wanted to name her Gynelotamin because she thought the name was great. We thankfully

talked her out of it.

Just to add my local funny store name:

http://soupytrumpet.com/?p=616

It does not exist anymore, but pretty damn funny!

Dealt with a guy at my job this week with the first name "Duckworth."

I swear it should be illegal for parents to give their kids certain names. They're just dooming the kid from the very start.

Went to school with a John Loser. He liked to be called Johnny which seemed to everyone else to make his name even more difficult to say with a straight face.

And once worked with a guy named Ashit Dey, pronounced Day just as you'd expect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malcolm R 

Dealt with a guy at my job this week with the first name "Duckworth."

 

I swear it should be illegal for parents to give their kids certain names. They're just dooming the kid from the very start.

Truly.  I think some names constitute child abuse in and of themselves.    I once worked for a major bank in New York, that had an early-savings program for college.  We bought the mailing list for the elementary school "paper" My Weekly Reader and targeted the parents of grade-schoolers, sending mailers to "The Parents of Joe Smith" or whoever.  I couldn't believe some of the names I saw.  If your last name is "Sawyer" do NOT name your kid "Tom"  It isn't cute, and he won't thank you for it.  Especially when he's grown up and explaining to the nice officer who pulls him over when he runs out without his wallet to get pickles and ice cream at 2 AM for his pregnant wife that yes, his name really is Tom Sawyer.  Ditto "Mike" if your name is "Hammer" and "Charlie" if your name is brown.  Speaking of "Mike", do remember that people will inevitably shorten your little darling's name, which is why most people should avoid calling their sons "Richard" and everyone with the surname "Hunt" should swear off the use of the name "Michael".  (Think about it.)   If you have an unfortunate last name, and for some reason failed to change it, don't compound the problem by saddling your precious with an equally unfortunate first name.  A kid named "Lipschitz" is going to take enough abuse - most of which you experienced yourself.  Believe me, the situation is not going to be improved by making his first name "Mortimer".  (You may have a "Boy Named Sue" theory working, whereby his getting his ass kicked every single day at recess will toughen him up,  but I actually knew a kid named Mortimer Lipschitz and, trust me, awesome toughness did not ensue.  As it were.)  Two-way names can be fine for girls (Taylor and Madison both experienced quite a vogue.)  The reverse is not true.  No six year old male wants to be called "Leslie".  If you name your son that he'll have to kick Mortimer Lipschitz's ass himself at least once a week just to get some playground cred.  And as soon as he's able he's going to get his friends to give him a tough nickname or start using his middle name anyway, so save everyone a lot of time and trouble and just give him a boy's name to begin with. 

Regards,

Joe 

A few weeks back, I received an application from a guy named "Imperious Black". I almost tossed it, assuming it was some Harry Potter-esque joke, but turns out he's a real person. Probably a cool name in the age of HP (meet my brothers, Sirius and Regulus...), but he was born quite a few years before the books came out so I have to wonder what Mom & Dad were thinking....

at work i came across a client on the database named Anita dyck.  with my own eyes, this is not second hand :P

oh, and it was her married name.

Folks also need to watch initials.  It is never a good idea to choose a first name (or one with a common nickname) that combines in a bad way with the kid's middle initial or the first letter of your last name.  Scores of young girls (and probably boys) have been scarred by names like "Billie Jean", "Bobby Joe" and even "Betty Sue".  Similarly, one of the biggest laughs in the play and movie The Odd Couple comes from this rant by Oscar:

"And stop leaving me little notes all over the place.  Today I found a note on the refrigerator - 'We're out of milk.  F.U.'  It took me half an hour to realize that 'F.U.' stood for 'Felix Unger'."

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Originally Posted by EricW 

oh, and it was her married name.

And that opens up a whole other can of worms. 

Regards,

Joe

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joseph DeMartino 

Folks also need to watch initials.  It is never a good idea to choose a first name (or one with a common nickname) that combines in a bad way with the kid's middle initial or the first letter of your last name. 

There was a girl in my junior high and high school whose initials were P.M.S. Wisely, she made fun of it herself which made it so that no one else could really goof on her for it.

When I was at High School there was a kid named Andrew Wheedon. One time he was disrupting Physics class and the teacher just started staring at him.

All went quiet for a minute - then the teacher said: "Wheedon . . . you should be!"

A store name I saw in London: "Ho Lee Phuc"

Where I grew up in Northern Virginia, there was a guy named Harold Beaver. 

I swear I'm not making this up, he was an OB Gynecologist - Dr. Harry Beaver

classic. http://www.healthgrades.com/directory_search/physician/profiles/dr-md-reports/dr-harry-beaver-md-fd3b8b34

Quote:

Originally Posted by TravisR 

There was a girl in my junior high and high school whose initials were P.M.S. Wisely, she made fun of it herself which made it so that no one else could really goof on her for it.

Yeah, I went to high school with a girl who had those same initials.  Of course, that was back in the late Cretaceous, before the term "p.m.s." had been coined, so she didn't have to endure the jokes back then.  But we laught about it in later years, and I'm sure she was sick of hearing about it by the time her reunions rolled around.  (She was two years behind me in school, and we have since lost touch.)

Another of my classmates were named Cockburn.  And that's how she and her entire family pronounced it all the way through the time we both started high school, when they suddenly "discovered" that it should be "Co-burn", the "c" and the "k" being silent.   That didn't stop her then boyfriend from yelling, during one cafeteria argument, "Cockburn you ---  Well.  The name says it, doesn't it."

I once worked a rural postal route that had a family named "Outhouse" on it.  The mailman who trained me was very careful to warn me it was pronounced it "O'Toosey"  Maybe they descended from a long line of Irish plumbers. 

Another one on marriage:  Dick Cavett used to tell the story (which he swears is true) of his great-aunt Edith Picton, who married a man named Ralph Appleoff - thus becoming "Edith Picton Appleoff." 

Later,

Joe

You can't necessarily legislate for what a name will sound like in another language.

But it is bizarre what parents will name their children, knowing full well what it means or sounds like in English.  For instance, I had a classmate called "Slim" -- fortunately for her father, she did grow up to be.  And there's a famous set of brothers here called "Atomic", "Hydrogen" and "Nuclear", IIRC all born in the late 50s or early 60s.  Fortunately, they did grow up to be scientists, indeed I seem to recall Atomic might really be a nuclear physicist but I can't remember offhand.