Names
Ecogeofemme have had a couple of posts up discussing wrong names and nicknames.
My name is very short and doesn't shorten or extend well at all. It's not very common so in Scandinavia people would mix it up with similar more common names. The only that always get it right would be the Danish. It bugged me as a kid but now I'm so used to it I'm past caring. According to the figure below from the name search engine on the Statistics Norway web page my parents contributed to the increase in the abundance of my name in the early 70s (y-axis is % girls given this name vs the year on the X-axis)
The same search engine also tells me I'm the only one in Norway with my combination of first and (two) family names. One of my family names (my dad's) is somewhere between the 1000th and 2000th place on the list of last names used by 200 or more and my other family name (my mom's) is not even on the list. Since there's only about 4.7 million inhabitants in Norway and many of those non-natives one would not expect it to be too rare, but I still find it satisfying to be unique in this way.
The last few years, I have noticed that especially anglo- and francophones have troubles with pronounciating my name. Mostly to my great amusement - especially the French have some really cute versions of it. Sometimes it bugs me; I've spent 25 years of my life trying to learn how to pronounce their languages and names right and many don't even ask how mine is correctly pronounced. But at the end of the day, I have more important things to worry about and don't care too much [as long as it's spelled correctly in the list of authors].
Interesting link there! My problem with foreign names is not on the proper pronunciation but on associating some names with the correct gender. Before coming to Sweden I had plenty of email correspondence with someone named Rigmor. Kept on addressing the person "Sir", and I was never corrected, until I finally met the person, who turned out to be the typical stunning swedish blond milf. LOL!
ReplyDelete:-D. That is certainly an additional issue I didn't discuss!
ReplyDeleteNow I'm wondering if I've been pronouncing your name wrong in my head....
ReplyDeletewell, we can sort that out when we meet in a few months!
ReplyDeleteha, I recognise that. The only place my name is correct is in Scandinavia. Why? Well, it's one of those "swedish ones".
ReplyDeleteIn English speaking places I have realised that there are two ways of pronouncing it; and it depends on if they read it or heard me say it when I was introduced.
I don't really care anymore but feel very happy when I hear the Swedish version of it. It warms my heart.
(it doesn't really help that my last names combined are 28 letters. Let's say being called Eve Burts have never been more tempting)
My name is impossible to pronounce to everyone from outside Scandinavia, and Scandinavians mistake the name for one of the more common versions, so I consider it a personal victory every time someone gets my name right. Actually, outside of norway I often translate my name. Kjerstin is hopeless, but Christine and Christina are pretty universal, and since childhood I'm used to answering to all possible forms of the name anyway. I don't really mind anymore. Somehow I like the idea of having a different name in different countries, like the royal names Henry and Charles turn into Henrik and Karl in Norway :-)
ReplyDeletechall; omd 28 letters that's a lot more than mine!
ReplyDeletekjerstin, sounds like you have my attitude to the name issue (and a significantly longer name)!
In Japan, your names are guaranteed to be mishandled, be it spoken or in print that you won't even recognize it yourself! It doesn't help that they use the last names suffixed by -san or -sensei, or -kun or -chan, depending on your position in the hierarchy. And if you got the letter "L" in your name, then you are doomed! hahaha!
ReplyDeleteHGG> well, truth to be told I just recounted and it isnt 28 in the two* last names. its only 20 ;) Its since I happen to have three first names (my parents liked three names... something to do with Victoria being born the same year sa I?) that my total count of names add up to more than ever fit into the boxes allocated for last names here in the States.
ReplyDelete*long story... id be happy with one.
One of my coworkers has a non-English name that is apparently impossible for English speakers to pronounce correctly. There is an obvious English pronounciation that this person hates, so s/he has chosen a pronounciation that is far from correct but less annoying that the way most Americans would like to say it. What's amazing is that some people refuse to say it how the person wants. hmmph.
ReplyDelete