There was a guy at my old firm whose name was Di~an. Yes, with the tilde.

I knew a woman in college who legally changed her first name to end with an exclamation point. Seriously. (Actually, now that I think about it, the city of Hamilton, Ohio, also changed its name for a time to be "Hamilton!" But now it's back to boring old punctuation-less Hamilton.)

Question: is it too ass-kissy to go see their production that opens tomorrow? It's Rossum's Universal Robots!

In honor of Dollhouse, you kind of have to go!

I knew a woman in college who legally changed her first name to end with an exclamation point. Seriously.

Well, the creator of Wondermark is David Malki !

I spell my name with an exclamation point, like so: David Malki !

It’s considered an honorific, and used in the same manner as “Jr.” or “PhD”: there’s a single space before it. The exclamation point is not pronounced — though many have tried, often with hilarious results.

McGunnigle

How do you pronounce it, Nora? I'm wondering if it is different from how I pronounce it in my head, because it's one of the names I've known since before I could spell (friend of my Aunt, who for a long time, I didn't realize might have a name other than her surname).

Is it normal that I'm a little skeeved to get a story from one of my editors wherein the fantasy woman sounds a lot like me? I mean, not that anything would come of it anyway...not only is he married, he's half a continent away from me.(Also, blind...the jokes write themselves.) But I'm inclined to feel that the lighthearted flirtatious banter I used to engage him with was something of a mistake. I mean, I suppose it's not that unusual to find an American male with a Thing about blondes...I've just never really felt it aimed in my direction before. So, this is being a sex object... it's not as fun as I'd hoped for. I'm kinda hating it actually. Like when that guy built that mannequin that looked like Elaine.

Wondermark

I'm getting myself "Clever Tricks to Stave Off Death" ASAP.

Now, you people are aware to that that in about two years, when I'll meet y'all, my chances of pronouncing your names correctly are about the same as my chances of not hitting the "t" key when typing my name every once in a while, yes?

(God bless the kid who designed the QWERTY keyboard; clearly, non-embarrassing transliteration of Hebrew to English was not his top priority).

Oh my gosh, my name.

First, on the telephone, when I say my name is Nadine, I get Nancy, Sandy, DeeDee.

Then, just in general life, people who can't remember my name call me Nancy, Naomi, Renee, and one woman consistantly called me Chantel.

Also, I would say a full 50% of the people I introduce myself to as "NAY-deen" pronounce it "nuh-DEEN" Not reading it, as I am introducing myself verbally. I don't get what is so hard about saying my name the way I just said it!

My problem with names (possibly related to Steph's dad's problem) is that as I get older, I tend to remember students because they may remind me of someone. And then I call them that name instead. For example, there is this girl at the theatre with a red bob who looks JUST LIKE a girl who moved away from my middle school in 7th grade named Lila, and she has the same sort of attitude. And I call her Lila. Or sometimes Leah. But her name is actually Jessica. But I just had to look it up to tell you that.

I don't get what is so hard about saying my name the way I just said it!

Yeah, welcome to my world. It's just a "t." It's nothing complicated or foreign to the US or UK ear. Everyone usually says it right once.

Oh, and in case people here are wondering how to pronounce my name: just like "shit", but replace the t with an almost non-existing r (Israelis don't pronounce r's).

It should sound like "she" with emphasis which ends weird on the "e" part, due to the almost non-existing r.

WRT: Names. Seriously, people are just not paying attention. Y'all's names are not that difficult. I've got the easiest name ever and people still mess it up because they just do not listen.

Names, argh. I'm 46 and still trying to decide what my name should be. My legal first name is Leone (lee-OHN), and growing up in the South, no one could get my name right. They were trying to make it be something they already knew. I got called Leonie, Leon, Iona, Lorina, I don't know where the "r" came from either. I got tired of having to spell it and correct pronunciation all the time, so I started going by my middle name in college. I thought, no one will mess up Elizabeth! I had no idea people would insist on calling me Beth or Lizzie. And ever since 9/11 I've had the worst trouble with it, because *everything*, even my tax return, is in the name "Elizabeth Lastname" except for my driver's license, which both NJ and VA insisted had to match my birth certificate. And then my new bank account put my full name on the account, even though I specifically asked them not to, but the mortgage I got from the *same bank* has me as "Elizabeth L. Lastname". So nothing matches, and most of it isn't right. I've been told I should change my name legally, and I guess I should, but it annoys me that I should have to do through all that just because I want to use my middle name.

Don't get me started on my last name. I'm thinking of changing that, too.