You don’t have to give any reason in Australia for changing your name and there are no significant governmental controls on what your name may be, and no department in control of names. You simply declare yourself to have a particular name and then start to use it.
A slight hijack, I used to have a client (Korean) whose ships were named the “something Yu”. So there was the Suk Yu, and the Fuk Yu…
And then there’s that famous joke email that goes around, attaching a .jpg of a letter, supposedly genuine, from a British consular officer serving in the Raj in Central Asia somewhere in the 19th Century, which describes him being introduced to a local by the name of Mustapha Kant.
"I always thought it was hilarious that my mother’s maiden name is Woodcock. "
OK got another one for you. I bought a book on computer networking a few years back. The printers made some kind of mistake though, and while the book was about 250 pages long, they tacked on an additional 75 pages or so or another book.
So pages 1-250 were the complete networking book, and 251-325 were the last pages of – a sex manual. One of those “Joys of Sex” type books, not mere base smut. Ha!
The name on the cover – that is, the author who wrote the networking book – was Bill Woodcock. The combination was priceless. Let’s just say it was the most popular computer networking book in the office.
I also knew a woman who worked at a TV station, her last name was Furbush. And she always threatened people before they could make fun of her name. =)
I could have sworn Cecil did a bit on the whole Exxon/Esso thing (essentially, Esso was too much like S.O. (Standard Oil), so they were losing or on the verge of losing trademark and related battles as they expanded out of the territory that they had after the Standard Oil breakup). But I’ll be darned if I can find it in the archives.
At any rate, does there remain in this thread a General Question still on the table?
Good lord, how can you leave out the Congressman from New Hampshire named (and this is indeed what he went by, no Richard for him!) : * Dick Swett *
This was posted purely in the interest of advancing knowledge and fighting ignorance. It was not in any way just a chance to revert to 6th grade and get cheap amusement out of potentially sexual words like say Dick Swett (he-he-he. Dude, he said “Sweat” he-he-he)
When that happened Mad Magazine had a picture of the White House with a big neon sign on the roof spelling out the name Nixxon (with x-es crossing just as in the Exxon logo). The caption was “It’s a new name, but it’s still the same old gas” (or something to that effect).
in the Moncton, NB, area phone book, there’s a listing for Kok, Dick Petrus…
Now, is ‘Petrus’ a dirty word, or did that idea just get ingrained in my mind, after so many years of seeing that listing?
I know it sure sounds dirty to me… lol
I also had a elementary music teacher whose first name was Gay, which of course we all thought was funny. I bet that there aren’t many children being named that anymore.
We also had a police officer in my hometown with the last name Dick. His uniform actually said: Lt. Dick.
On meeting their new Persian in-laws, my parents were more than a bit surprised to learn that my wife’s paternal aunt is named Vaggie.:eek:
And among my in-laws friends is an American lady who lived in Iran with her Iranian husband for a while. Her given name is Ann, but goes by Lisa, because Ann means shit in Iranian (Farsee).
Ok, so this isn’t quite a “swear” word, but it’s pretty goddamn funny. The victim was my great-great-uncle, patriarch of my family, who died ten years ago at 92.
Family history: Once upon a time, there was a family in Germany named Groethe, which was pronounced Gruh-tuh. And it was good. They immigrated to Milwaukee sometime in the 1870s, whereupon they Anglicized the pronunciation of their name to Growth. And that was good, too.
And then they had a beautiful baby boy. Reflecting their pride in their new land, they gave him the all-American name of:
Harry.
Not Henry, or Heinrich, or Harris, but Harry.
And that was not good.
Solution: he changed the pronunciation yet again, to Growth-ee. And it was good again.
