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I think that having an unusual name (and I am qualified in that department)
is a bit annoying for the first 13 or so years of life when you desperately want to be exaclty like everyone else, and after that it's great beacuase everyone thinks you are automatically a bit cool.
Until, in my case, SKODA decide to steal your name and then everyone thinks it's TERRIBLY funny to ask you about your servicing, milage and airbags.... but I digress.
Unusual names are coool.
Therefore a person with one is often accused of being interesting. Even without a scrap of evidence that this is, in fact, so...
My name is boringly normal, although my surname is pretty unique. Apparently I can trace my Polish family back to 1380-something, whereas over here I can only get back about two generations...
PSD
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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.
I heard this on John Peel's Radio 4 show, Home Truths. There was this couple who wanted to name their children with really interesting names, but didn't want to put them through the hell of school with them.
So they didn't tell them what their middle names were until they absolutely had to - driving licence/passport etc.
One was called John Smith (or something equally nondescript). His middle name was 'Zambezi'. Alas, I can't remember what the girl's name was...
As for annoying names, the only thing worse than having a middle name after a tree (June is for juniper), is having a first name given after a glider! Dad used to fly on a thing called Die Weihe, which is said to mean 'chicken hawk' in German (anybody out there can confirm? I always wandered); he derived my name from it. Needles to say, grade school was a nightmare...
My brother Geoff and I both have middle names, but my brother Chris doesn't. Mum was talking to the Vicar about his christening, and got as far as Christopher, when the vicar interrupted and said 'Not Christoper Robin.' This was what Mum *had* planned, but after his comment, she didn't want to say so. As she couldn't think of another name at the time, he is Christopher No-Middle-Name Taylor.
I have a friend called Tony. This is not short for Anthony, his mother wanted just Tony. Her Vicar refused to baptise him as Tony, and said it had to be Anthony. His mother decided that if the church was going to be so narrow-minded, she wasn't going to have him baptised, and didn't.
Fortunately the church had no problem with me being Ben, although various middle names had to be rejected until my parents realised I'd have to have two to avoid unfortunate acronyms...
PSD
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This is the work of an Italian narco-anarchic collective. Don't bother insulting them, they can't read English anyway.
Posted by: Anonymous User (---.dalect01.va.comcast.net)
Date: May 02, 2003 10:18PM
'Twila' has kind of grown on me. Or at least I've grown into it. I almost ended up as "Maudie Marie"....EEEEESH! I just wish people would learn to pronounce my name correctly!