6 ms·
One thing that's annoying to me is that governments and employers increasingly believe many of these things, partly because they want to cross-reference names a
by mjn 13y ago
One thing that's annoying to me is that governments and employers increasingly believe many of these things, partly because they want to cross-reference names and match canonical forms.
My given names in English are Mark Jason, and that's on my birth certificate. In Greek, they're Μάρκος Ιάσονας, which are the equivalents, and that's on my municipal birth records there (registered as a foreign birth at the time of baptism). There seems to be a move towards wanting to use "accurate" transliterations, though, rather than the more traditional method of translating names to equivalents (Mark<->Markos, George<->Georgios, Paul<->Pavlos, etc.). Sometimes people desire that: maybe someone named Михаил in Russian really doesn't want to be turned into Michael, but wants to go by Mikhail. That's fine, if they prefer. But in my case, I consider each of these translated forms to be my name in the respective languages, and do not consider the transliterated forms to be my name.
But in trying to sort out some paperwork, it appears that what I am supposed to do is one of these two things: 1) change my name in English from Mark Jason to Markos Iasonas, the transliteration of my Greek name; or 2) change my name in Greek from Μάρκος Ιάσονας to Μαρκ Τζέισον, the transliteration of my English name. But I don't want to do either of those things. #2 in particular is ridiculous, because it doesn't decline properly, and is trying to approximate a 'j' sound with 'tz'.
- moheeb 13y agoChange it to Mapcock.
- nobodysfool 13y agoYea, my daughter's name is a bit unusual, and so the transliteration produces a different name than english. Her name is Thamina. It's an Arabic origin name, so in Arabic it's : ثمينة. Not that she's Arabic at all, she's part Russian, and was born in Russia, so her name is Тхамина in Russian. They transliterate her name in a standard way to Tkhamina on her Russian passport, but on her USA passport it's Thamina.
- R_Edward 13y agoGrowing up, my parents called me by my middle name, as I share a first name with my dad. (I'd rather be an Edward than a Ralph anyway.) When giving my name to someone, I tell them I'm Edward <Lastname>, as telling them I'm R. Edward <Lastname> just sounds pretentious. But if I'm beginning a relationship with a doctor's office or lawyer, or filling in a tax form, it's Ralph E. Lastname, because that's what's on my birth certificate and SSA record. It is quite annoying when the phone rings, and I don't recognize the calling number, so I answer with a guarded, "This is Ed..." and hear the caller ask, "May I speak to Ralph?" and have to explain to them that I really am Ralph, even though I said I was Ed. But I have to say, my problems are nothing compared to yours! CSB: My mom signed me up for a book club when I was 6 or 7. For the Firstname field, she wrote, "R Edward" for reasons known only to her. For the next three years, every couple months, I'd get a package addressed to Redward <Lastname>. I could just imagine the shipping clerk in that company reading my shipping label and saying to himself, "Redward... what a goofy name."
- jacalata 13y agoTry just answering the phone with "hello?" for unknown numbers.
- R_Edward 13y agoAt home, I only pick up for known numbers, and let the answering machine screen the rest. At work, they kind of expect you to identify yourself when you pick up the phone. But yes, what you suggest is a workable alternative, where allowed.
- jlgreco 13y agoThis is my situation as well. I can't count the number of times I've gotten the "Redward" equivalent. To compound the problems caused by this, I switched to using my first name as my primary name around the same time as I switched coast. People on the east coast know me as my middle name, people from the west coast know me as my first name. This can come in handy sometimes as it gives me a very quick indication of where I know somebody from, but gave me a good deal of trouble recently at a west-coast wedding with lots of east-coast people attending... The fact that some of my friends were introducing me to other people with just my last name made it quite... interesting.
- kbenson 13y agoas telling them I'm R. Edward <Lastname> just sounds pretentious Not to mention it casts serious doubt as to your organic nature.
- SiVal 13y agoMany years ago Safeway, a commonly seen grocery store in the US, started using a Safeway Card to gather data on its customers. Shoppers get lower prices if they use it, so I filled out my paper form. Some non-English speaking data entry clerk in Mexico somehow mistook my middle initial for an "Os" and prepended it to my last name, creating quite a tongue twister. Safeway checkout clerks are apparently required to thank me by name, using the name that pops up on their screens when I swipe my card. For nearly twenty years now, all over the country, every harried Safeway checker has sent me on my way with, "Thank you Mr., uh, Asperger", or "Thanks, um, Mr. Ostrich", or whatever that bizarre cluster of letters randomly turned into on the way out of their mouths. At first, I thought I should fix it, but I quickly grew to enjoy the show. I also enjoy the thought of them trying to cross-match Mr. Asperger with other consumer databases.
- ansimionescu 13y agoI feel your pain, although we Romanians use the (standard?) latin alphabet. I had to spell 'Andrei Simionescu' over the phone so many times that I'm sure I could win a couple of spelling bees easily. Speaking of which, why don't all companies just move to automated support systems already? These guys are doing it right http://www.zocdoc.com/ http://www.zocdoc.com/
- anotherevan 13y agoNot sure why, but your story reminded me of a friend of mine who's always gone by the name, "Mick" (a common shortening for the name Michael in Australia.) The thing is, neither his first or middle names are Michael. It was just a nickname that stuck when he was a kid. I kid you not, at his wedding when the celebrant said, "Do you Susan, take this man Brian..." his bride exclaimed, "Who's Brian?"
- Mvandenbergh 13y agoHuman names are an excellent illustration of the reason that you shouldn't use 'real' data as a key in a database. If the key is arbitrary and meaningless then it doesn't need to be mutable.