In Spain Leonor was considered a very old-fashioned name… then the Prince spawned. The waiting list for the daycare down the street from Mom’s has as many Leonores this year as Jennifers in previous ones. The owner says she definitely prefers Leonor “at least I know I’m pronouncing it right!”
wolfstu, Ramón (Spanish spelling) or Raimon (Catalan spelling) is very popular aroung “Catalan lands” - it’s the name of a lot of historic figures, for example the Twin Counts of Barcelona, Ramón Berenguer and Berenguer Ramón, and the writer Raimon Llull, after whom my University is named
No, those names are from the early Middle Ages, a time when most people in Hispania didn’t have “family names” as we have them nowadays. Faced with twins, the previous Count simply took the double name he was going to give to his heir (his own name) and flipped it over for the unexpected extra kid.
Nowadays many “nombres compuestos” (double names or names which are more than one word in order to be more specific, for example “Francis Xavier” or “Francis Borja”) are kind of “frozen” in the collective mind, so you’re likely to get Miguel Ángel (as in Michelangelo Buonarroti) but not Ángel Miguel (which would make sense actually, Michael being an (arch)Angel); Juan Carlos but not Carlos Juan.
That’s wonderful. And would also probably feature high in a thread about awful baby names.
This also seems to be part of the problem for me – people think it’s two first names. Like they’re expecting to later find out that I’m Raymond Francis McAllister, or Raymond Francis de Ruiter van der Zalm, or something.
It is a tremendous source of amusement (and occasionally inconvenience) for me.
Yes, I know quite a few people whose lastnames are more common as firstnames or vice versa and this seems to be a general problem. But heck, something like “Francissen” or “Francisson” or “Francísquez” would be quite an impronunceable mouthful!
My first name is not difficult. Jessica. Now Jennifer I can understand, I can sort of see where you were going with Rebecca, obviously the ‘ca’ sound was dominant to you and it’s evidently got the three syllables so I guess I can see that. But I have had Janet more times recently than makes any sort of sense. I mean, are people just going for anything that starts with a ‘J’? And if so, why do so many of them immediately go with Janet? Do I look like a Janet and if so what does a Janet look like exactly?
And on the phone is another issue again. I say ‘Jessica’, and they always hear Jackie. Now at first I took responsibility for my own mispronunciation. Obviously, I know how to pronounce my own name, but perhaps my elocution was leaving something to be desired. Perhaps I was compressing the syllables to such an extent that people were just hearing ‘J’ and ‘K’ and generating something that sounded appropriate. But now I really try hard to enunciate slowly and carefully and I still get bloody Jackie. There’s only a certain number of times you can say ‘no, not Jackie, Jessica’ before you just lose the will to live and need to move on.
My surname has been a problem since I was old enough to spell. It’s very simple, it’s only one syllable but unfortunately the usual spelling is with two ‘R’s, not one. Asking a 5 year old if they are sure that’s how they spell their name is one thing, but asking a 25 year old?! And why ask at all if you’re going to completely disregard what I say and write what you think you heard anyway? Gahhh!
Nooooooo. Why do folks see the written/typed word “Joel” and pronounce it Joe-ELL? It’s a very basic name; why must you screw that up? My last name is more difficult, being “archaic” French and all; I’m used to that being effed up.
Maybe it’s because of the French surname? If I saw a name like “Joel Desjardins” or “Joel Lafreniere” I’d probably assume it was French. But then, I’m from an area where French names are very common (and French commonly spoken).
It’s from the Bill Murray movie Stripes, specifically this exchange when the new recruits are introducing themselves:
Psycho: The name’s Francis Soyer, but everybody calls me Psycho. Any of you guys call me Francis, and I’ll kill you.
Leon: Ooooooh.
Psycho: You just made the list, buddy. Also, I don’t like no one touching my stuff. So just keep your meathooks off. If I catch any of you guys in my stuff, I’ll kill you. And I don’t like nobody touching me. Any of you homos touch me, and I’ll kill you.
Sergeant Hulka: Lighten up, Francis.
It’s become a common response when someone seems to be taking themselves too seriously or overreacting to something.
To the poster who has someone near to them with the “Craig/Greg” problem… (too lazy to look up)
To my untrained ear, all of the times I’ve seen someone called “Craig” on an American TV show, people seem to be calling them “Creg”. Which has led to much confusion as I’ve tried to puzzle out if they’re saying “Greg”, until I get to the closing credits and see “Craig… actor’s name here”. If someone was introduced to me as “Creg” and I wasn’t listening, you can bet your ass I’d be calling him “Greg” until I was educated otherwise.
I’ve written about my name woes here before. Though I can’t fault the readers/listeners for getting it wrong.
But it does get wearisome (especially now I’m looking for work again and fielding a lot of calls from strangers) to answer the phone for someone looking for “See-o-ba-harn”. My doctors take to calling me by my last name when calling me up for appointments. And telling people how to spell it is always fun. “That’s S for sierra. I. O. B for bravo. H. A. N for November. Sorry, b first. Yes, b for barry. Then H. A. N. November. Yes, it is an interesting name. It’s Irish. Thank you”.
Also, in coffee places my name is either Jane, Toni or Chris. By my admission, because I don’t feel like spending five minutes to spell my name just to get a chai or a hot chocolate.
Of course, I only did the cut-and-paste because I wanted to accurately capture the lunacy that provoked Sgt Hulka’s response. I think Stripes is one of Bill Murray’s masterpieces, possibly second only to Groundhog Day.
