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The government ate my name

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Re: The government ate my name

#61

Post by romanhn »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #7

There's an analogous problem for Russians, and presumably folks from other Slavic-language countries. Our last names are gendered; if Ivan Kuznetsov marries Elena, her last name becomes Kuznetsova. (And their children would have gendered last names, too - little Borya Kuznetsov and little Masha Kuznetsova.) So Russian families who move to America have a choice - either deal with people and systems who assume that mar…

Funny enough, my wife and her parents all ended up with different variations of their last names in English when immigrating: ending in -ky, -kiy, and -kaya.

Re: The government ate my name

#62

Post by rkomorn »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #13
dustincoates wrote: post #12

Moving to a country that doesn't speak English has taught me just how many pronunciations of my last name there are. It's never really bothered me, though, and 90% of the time I'll introduce myself with the "wrong" one. It's easier for everyone.

Samesies; when I moved to Texas, people put the accent in my name on the wrong syllable, but after awhile that began to sound more natural than my name with the accent in the correct place but with an American accent. "PAYvel" sounds worse to me than "PahVEL", so I go by the latter - presumably fucking it up for every Pavel that comes into these people's lives after me.

What gets me is the people who decide not to call me by the name I specifically introduce myself with.

I have a nasal vowel in my name that, so far in my life, only French and Portuguese speakers have pronounced properly.

I learned English in the US young enough that no one guesses I'm not native, and I anglicized my name so that it could be pronounced easily. It is what I go by.

I introduce myself with this adopted pronunciation. People often ask me how to pronounce it in French, so I tell them, but reiterate that I go by the anglicized pronunciation.

Inevitably, those folks start using their wrong attempt at French and I have to correct them and tell them I go by the anglicized pronunciation.

Edit: strong feelings had, obviously.

Re: The government ate my name

#63

Post by [deleted] »

cortesoft wrote: post #59
pavel_lishin wrote: post #7

There's an analogous problem for Russians, and presumably folks from other Slavic-language countries. Our last names are gendered; if Ivan Kuznetsov marries Elena, her last name becomes Kuznetsova. (And their children would have gendered last names, too - little Borya Kuznetsov and little Masha Kuznetsova.) So Russian families who move to America have a choice - either deal with people and systems who assume that mar…

> who assume that married couples, and parents/children all have the same last name and hit roadblocks when that expectation does not match reality Speaking as someone whose mom didn't change their name when marrying my dad, with a sister who didn't change her name when marrying my brother in law, with a wife who also didn't change her name when she married me, I think this problem is overblown. I have yet to encount…

[deleted]

Re: The government ate my name

#64

Post by angarg12 »

I'm hispanic and my two last names are Garcia Garcia. That is two last names that just happen to be the same.

When I moved to the US I could have dropped one or hyphenate them. I decided to keep it as-is, and use "Garcia Garcia" as my last name (space and all).

Besides confusing amongs americans and people always confusing one Garcia for middle name and one for last name, I had almost no problems. One time an airline messed up my plane ticket (again by dropping one of the Garcias) but that's it.

I appreciate other people have different experiences, I definitely met folks who have changed their names to conform to american customs and make things easier.

Re: The government ate my name

#65

Post by hiatus »

watwut wrote: post #27
xg15 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds as if it could slowly erode the whole "gendered surname" concept even in the origin countries (e.g. Russia) If you can treat the gendered name simply as a grammatical construct, things are easy - and a "name" like "Elena Kuznetsov" would simply be a grammatical error and never occur as a real name. However, now people from abroad visit the country or possibly even (re-)immigrate and suddenly you do have r…

Gendered name is grammatical construct, literally. But the strong "Elena Kuznetsov" cant exist rules are bad idea, because a.) foreigners exist b.) minorities exists c.) people with strong opinions over how they want to be named exist. They can exist, but sound weird in the language.

> people with strong opinions over how they want to be named exist.

is a total non-issue. You can't, in any country I'm aware of, choose absolutely any name you want.

Re: The government ate my name

#66

Post by jltsiren »

QuantumNomad_ wrote: post #46
bombcar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you go with the phonetic option, or do you just use the Cyrillic for the name of the writer of the Gospel? (It's a more general question, too, is John Juan when he's in Mexico?)

> is John Juan when he's in Mexico? For the biblical Jesus, the situation is even worse. His name was probably originally יֵשׁוּעַ, and should therefore have been Yeshua to us users of the modern day Latin alphabet. But instead his name was adapted to Greek linguistic conventions as Ἰησοῦς (Iēsoûs), and from there transliterated into Jesus.

It's simpler than that. The Koine Greek transliteration became established long before that particular Jesus was born. It was a common name in a region that belonged to various Greek-speaking empires for centuries, at least nominally. The transliteration was based on the pronunciation used at the time, with a masculine suffix to make the name less awkward in Greek.

And then people wrote the texts that would become the New Testament in Greek, because it was the dominant language around the Eastern Mediterranean.

Re: The government ate my name

#67

Post by bombcar »

jltsiren wrote: post #66
QuantumNomad_ wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is John Juan when he's in Mexico? For the biblical Jesus, the situation is even worse. His name was probably originally יֵשׁוּעַ, and should therefore have been Yeshua to us users of the modern day Latin alphabet. But instead his name was adapted to Greek linguistic conventions as Ἰησοῦς (Iēsoûs), and from there transliterated into Jesus.

It's simpler than that. The Koine Greek transliteration became established long before that particular Jesus was born. It was a common name in a region that belonged to various Greek-speaking empires for centuries, at least nominally. The transliteration was based on the pronunciation used at the time, with a masculine suffix to make the name less awkward in Greek. And then people wrote the texts that would become th…

It’s also something uniquely modern that we consider a person to have “one true and real name” - something completely unheard of until quite recently.

Re: The government ate my name

#68

Post by krior »

pixl97 wrote: post #6
comrade1234 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA government can't even handle ü. I was filling out a simple form to replace my damaged passport. I live in Zürich but it couldn't handle the umlaut. I never know what to do in this situation - do I use 'ue' instead, which is most common in Europe, or do I just use 'u' which is wrong but usually works in America. I didn't even bother checking with 'ue' and just went with 'u' Ü isn't even a special character or…

Don't think of government ascii as the entire ascii code page. Instead think of it as what's on a typewriter. You get 0-9 and A-Z along with a few punctuation characters.

Not very helpful - my typewriter has an ü :)

Re: The government ate my name

#69

Post by trallnag »

cortesoft wrote: post #59
pavel_lishin wrote: post #7

There's an analogous problem for Russians, and presumably folks from other Slavic-language countries. Our last names are gendered; if Ivan Kuznetsov marries Elena, her last name becomes Kuznetsova. (And their children would have gendered last names, too - little Borya Kuznetsov and little Masha Kuznetsova.) So Russian families who move to America have a choice - either deal with people and systems who assume that mar…

> who assume that married couples, and parents/children all have the same last name and hit roadblocks when that expectation does not match reality Speaking as someone whose mom didn't change their name when marrying my dad, with a sister who didn't change her name when marrying my brother in law, with a wife who also didn't change her name when she married me, I think this problem is overblown. I have yet to encount…

I have experienced visa issues due to name differences in papers while traveling between Belarus and Russia. Monetary arguments were necessary to get through.

But this was also over a decade ago.

Re: The government ate my name

#70

Post by noduerme »

QuantumNomad_ wrote: post #46
bombcar wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you go with the phonetic option, or do you just use the Cyrillic for the name of the writer of the Gospel? (It's a more general question, too, is John Juan when he's in Mexico?)

> is John Juan when he's in Mexico? For the biblical Jesus, the situation is even worse. His name was probably originally יֵשׁוּעַ, and should therefore have been Yeshua to us users of the modern day Latin alphabet. But instead his name was adapted to Greek linguistic conventions as Ἰησοῦς (Iēsoûs), and from there transliterated into Jesus.

So is Joshua Jesus when he's in Mexico?
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