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Helpnames granted by other-language-speakers
What names have you been granted by other language speakers? I had an arabophone coworker who'd regularly refer to me as Ehud (אהוד as opposed to אוהד) since it's more common. I also had an italian man who hosted me on vacation refer to me as "Giovanni" as a placeholder name, though I told him my Italian name is Ovidio.
This message was edited 1/17/2024, 8:21 AM
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I had a Chinese name I can’t share unfortunately because it resembles my surname (which is a matronymic and contains a female given name that’s common in various languages).
The grandma in my Japanese host family called me Fuca-chan, smushing together the first and last syllable of my name in a Japanese pronunciation.
The grandma in my Japanese host family called me Fuca-chan, smushing together the first and last syllable of my name in a Japanese pronunciation.
How do I get this??
Hang out with people from other cultures and see if they start calling you something else, either out of affection or because it's easier for them in their language!
A Columbian colleague calls me Chabela (which I love)
It's never happened to me at all. Either my name or my acquaintances must be very dull.
I have met a person who said that when she was a child, she was playing in a park with other children and they asked her what her name was. It's Deborah, and they all accepted this except one little boy who said firmly 'No it isn't; it's Deirdre.' She objected, he insisted, and finally marched over to her mother, expecting to be proved right. He'd never heard of Deborah, and therefore it didn't exist. He was proved wrong, and went away: didn't play with the other kids again.
I have met a person who said that when she was a child, she was playing in a park with other children and they asked her what her name was. It's Deborah, and they all accepted this except one little boy who said firmly 'No it isn't; it's Deirdre.' She objected, he insisted, and finally marched over to her mother, expecting to be proved right. He'd never heard of Deborah, and therefore it didn't exist. He was proved wrong, and went away: didn't play with the other kids again.
I taught kids about 4 years old, and I can say some of them don't ubderstand that names can occur more than once. I met a 4yo named Ohad who insisted he was Ohad, and I wasn't.
You must admit, he had a point. After all, you didn't look a bit like him!