What's in a name (offtopic) WAS: Re: Chaz's Livejournal

[cciele]

And of course, once you have children, you tend to put your real name on the backburner and become known as "Small Child's Mummy" - I have plenty of adult acquaintances whose names I don't know because we exist as our children's parents.

^^True, dat! I love how kids see you and yell, "Hi, so-and-so's mom!"

[MadGastronomer]

I love how kids see you and yell, "Hi, so-and-so's mom!"

In high school and college, I dated a girl who had been my best friend for several years previously.  In all the time she knew my famil;y, she never called my mom anything other than "Mrs. Becky's Mom."  (She never called my dad anything at all.)

[Bunny M]

I feel your pain when it comes to people pronouncing/spelling unusual names. My surname is Scots Gaelic, which means it's pronounced absolutely nothing like it is spelled. At least with a certain British police show more people get how to spell/pronounce it, but they're still damn rare.

[Cherith]

I've always encountered trouble with my last name, both with my maiden name, and now my married one.  People read what they want to, not how it's spelled.  So my married name is Parmeter, but people consistently say 'parameter' or, if they know someone with a similar last name, 'parmenter'. 

[el_jefe]

Heh, the worst I get is the slight change at the end of my family name, that is similar to a certain actors. Although apparently on of my ancestors at some point had to get a monkey named after him 

I use the same screen name everywhere, I picked it up years ago in Mexico, and is close enough to my given name most of my friends use them both. Although it does shock folks that assume I am Hispanic when we meet. . . 

[mocknot]

My name's Celia, and I keep doing battle against all the people who want to call me Cecelia because of that damn Simon & Garfunkel song. Which they sing to me, just in case I'd managed to miss hearing it. :sigh: I've given up on correcting people more than once about that, unless they get my name completely and totally wrong, (if you can possibly imagine a way to pronounce Celia, or if it starts with a soft c/s sound I've probably been called it at some point) such as when the HR person at my current job tried to introduce me to everyone as 'Sonia'. Or if they try to call me 'Cece'.

[glinda_w]

Do you ever get anyone quoting or singing Ben Jonson's "To Celia" at you?

[laura]

my little sister and i both married Adams.  my other little sister has a long term female partner (in a non-marriage-able state), and her name is Madde. 

phonetically backwards Adam....  it's just odd. 

[etherjammer]

My name's Celia, and I keep doing battle against all the people who want to call me Cecelia because of that damn Simon & Garfunkel song. Which they sing to me, just in case I'd managed to miss hearing it. :sigh: I've given up on correcting people more than once about that, unless they get my name completely and totally wrong, (if you can possibly imagine a way to pronounce Celia, or if it starts with a soft c/s sound I've probably been called it at some point) such as when the HR person at my current job tried to introduce me to everyone as 'Sonia'. Or if they try to call me 'Cece'.

How do you pronounce it?  I knew a woman in college with the same spelling who pronounced it "seh-LIE-ah", accent on the middle syllable.

Then again, I went to a small liberal arts college; I also knew a Dyaena ("JOHN-ah") and an Aistley ("ess-LAY").  There's perhaps a reason I named my son Michael.

[jimsmyth]

Then again, I went to a small liberal arts college; I also knew a Dyaena ("JOHN-ah") and an Aistley ("ess-LAY").  There's perhaps a reason I named my son Michael.

Mik-AH-el?

Me, I got Jim Smith, so I try and be careful around others' names, and value the exotic ones like a little treasure.

[AmandaL]

Amanda's a pretty common and easy to spell first name.  (Although at my part time job - i work full time, as well - my name comes up on all reports as "Amanada" which amuses me.)

My middle names come from my grandmothers - one from each.  I just shorten it to MJ so I don't have the longest name EVAR (though I think Bear beats me on that).

My last name (Loucks) is German, I believe, and used to have a 'von' in front of it at one point in time.  It's very rare that someone will get it right on their first try, and even if I've known them for a while, a good chunk of my friends (and coworkers) get the pronounciation wrong.  I had a former coworker end up calling me at home (while I was in the same room as she was at work) asking for "Amanda Lou-cocks."  I giggled, because I had no idea where she got the extra letters from.

My livejournal name is sort of an old nickname (adara_d), but I'm trying to find a new one because other than my super old hotmail address that I use for MSN, I don't use Adara as a handle anymore.  On Twitter and Pownce, my handle is amandageddon, because that's the name on the back of my hockey jerseys.

I'm blabbing, sorry.

[mocknot]

Do you ever get anyone quoting or singing Ben Jonson's "To Celia" at you?

Only my mom . She actually got the name from the play "Much Ado About Nothing". Which, much to my surprise I had someone correctly guess this year.

How do you pronounce it?  I knew a woman in college with the same spelling who pronounced it "seh-LIE-ah", accent on the middle syllable.

Then again, I went to a small liberal arts college; I also knew a Dyaena ("JOHN-ah") and an Aistley ("ess-LAY").  There's perhaps a reason I named my son Michael.

SEE-lee-ah. Seh-LIE-ah might just be one I've not heard. I've gotten seh-LEE-ah, keh-LEE-ah, KEL-ee-ah, KEL-ah, SEL-ah, SEL-ee-ah, SEE-ya, SAY-lee, KAY-lee-AH, etc. Also, Sylvia sounds close enough that I had one person call me that for a month, and I never noticed until he figured it out and said something, because he tended to mumble. And I once had someone who would not believe me that my name wasn't Cynthia, to the point of giving me the nickname 'Cynth'.

This is why I tend to encourage people to just shorten my name to Cel (pron. Seal).

[nebula]

Do you ever get anyone quoting or singing Ben Jonson's "To Celia" at you?

Only my mom . She actually got the name from the play "Much Ado About Nothing". Which, much to my surprise I had someone correctly guess this year.

How do you pronounce it?  I knew a woman in college with the same spelling who pronounced it "seh-LIE-ah", accent on the middle syllable.

Then again, I went to a small liberal arts college; I also knew a Dyaena ("JOHN-ah") and an Aistley ("ess-LAY").  There's perhaps a reason I named my son Michael.

SEE-lee-ah. Seh-LIE-ah might just be one I've not heard. I've gotten seh-LEE-ah, keh-LEE-ah, KEL-ee-ah, KEL-ah, SEL-ah, SEL-ee-ah, SEE-ya, SAY-lee, KAY-lee-AH, etc. Also, Sylvia sounds close enough that I had one person call me that for a month, and I never noticed until he figured it out and said something, because he tended to mumble. And I once had someone who would not believe me that my name wasn't Cynthia, to the point of giving me the nickname 'Cynth'.

This is why I tend to encourage people to just shorten my name to Cel (pron. Seal).

That list of pronounciations baffles me - I've known a few Celias and they have all been "SEE-lee-ah". Maybe that's because it's less unusual, although not common, in the UK??

[mocknot]

That list of pronounciations baffles me - I've known a few Celias and they have all been "SEE-lee-ah". Maybe that's because it's less unusual, although not common, in the UK??

I've heard this before. And like, I'll run into books that have characters named Celia every once in a while, so I keep thinking that my name can't be that rare. But spelling tends to be a complete crapshoot too. People get over-excited with the vowels. Though, I've never actually met someone else with my name in person, so maybe it's just where I live.

[kayjayoh]

I've never had any problems with getting people to pronounce my name correctly, but the spelling is all over the place. There are four different spellings of my last name, depending on which type of Scandinavian you are and whether you like E's or O's better. My first name is Katherine, which I have seen with various combinations of K or K; -er, -ar, or -r; -rine, -rin, -ryn, and -ryne. There may ever be more combinations that I haven't the creativity to find. I've learned that it is usually safest to spell out my whole name when I give it to people for official purposes.