I knew of a Gaylord; apparently he went by Gayle, which is sorta better. I have known a goodly number of men named Gayle or Gale, though, for whatever reason.
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pronounced Ba-ckou’-sie.
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Obligatory Hyacinth Bucket referenece
Used to know a female adult whose given last name was Clitsome.
I have met 2 unrelated people with the last name Butt. Unfortunate for sure.
I worked with a guy with the last name Badcock. It was pronounced “Badco” of course (much like Cockburn/“Coburn”).
There is a famous philanthropist in my city named Harry Hole.
Could’ve been worse: “Buster.”
Pronounced GRO-koe ?
I went to school with the Darling sisters. I heard through the grape vine years late that their brother married a Darlene. What do you do with that, keep your maiden name and be introduced as Jimmy and Darlene, then have people respond yes, “Jimmy Darling, what’s your wifes name?”
My maiden last name was Lishin, and I had high hopes of having a boy…first name would be, of course, Demo…hence Demolishin!! How awesome would that have been?? But I had a daugher…I did know a kid years ago with the name “Guy Wooster”…which I thought was strange sounding…lol
I used to know a family with the last name of Ness. They had boy/girl twins. Boy’s name started with “P” and girl’s name started with “A”. I can’t help but wonder if the parents did it on purpose.
Redneck Avenue runs between Moonachie and Little Ferry, NJ. Just try having something delivered there.
Back in my adolescence, an obviously inexperienced substitute teacher entered my 8th grade math class. Sweating profusely, bad skin, giant armpit stains . . . he was terrified. And he was a mess. He turned to write his name on the board and the class erupted with laughter: his unfortunate name was Mr. Eck.
Romney.
What’s wrong with Lewinsky?
There is a local guy who has his name plastered on trucks, etc promoting his business. Why he wouldn’t have stuck with Richard Greece instead of Dick, I’ll never understand.
My first lastname is three words. When I lived in the US I used to joke that I needed to marry there and take the guy’s name: whichever it turned out to be, it would have been less likely to get misfiled!
I have to take a plane next week. My new boss bought the tickets, and he only listed the first of the three words as “lastname”, so the “lastname” in the reservation does not exactly match the one in my ID: let’s hope nobody makes a fuss of it… “Oh, it doesn’t matter!” “Until legalities are involved you’re right, it doesn’t”. If I am refused boarding because of this I am SOOOO not letting him live it down.
Well, a lot of troubles can be overcome when you have an oil well in your backyard.
I used to work with a young woman named Jill Smellie. She got married to a non-odiferous man very shortly after joining our office. (I am not sure, but I doubt whether she was much older than 18 or 19, and she was very pretty.)
My husband used to work with a guy named Buttkowski. When he got married, he took his wife’s last name.
We knew an interracial couple, both very nice. He was white, she was black. Their last name was Nigg. I always thought she must have loved him a ton, to take that name when they married.
That’s my first name, and while I did get teased a lot for it as a kid (esp in 7th grade since I had a math teacher who insisted on pronouncing it using the long I sound, even though I corrected him every single time he said my name :mad:), as an adult no one has ever given me any grief over it.
But I think Americans only have trouble with that if it is actually spelled “Wiener”, meaning from Vienna, or meaning a small sausage.
John or Johns
Herb (ironically, one of my doctors is named Herb Johns)
Glump (my ex-sister-in-law’s married name. Yikes!) :eek:
Hoggle, Swoggle, Boggle - anything “–oggle” really.
After my divorce, I decided to change my last name because I really hated his, which I’d taken very reluctantly. (To protect the innocent, I haven’t listed it here.) Anyway, it was an interesting process to be able to select my own last name. Any name – with a few exceptions (see above :)) was fair game. I ended up selecting my mother’s maiden name which I’d always liked, was familiar enough to be easily spoken and spelled, but different enough to still be unique. For example, in the state agency I work for, which has 1, 500+ employees, I’m the only one with my last name. 
Years ago there was a reporter on local radio called Mike Rowbottom.