I have a 4-letter German last name in a goddamn German town, and I cannot begin to tell you how many people get it wrong. I pretty much think people are just stupid.

My company's name is BigBoss's name, followed by "Books" -- like "John Smith Books Co." And when I tell it to people, they go "Whuuuuuut?" and I say "[John], like the name, [Smith], like the name, Books, like the things you read." And then they suddenly get it.

Again, I'ma go with -- people. stupid.

I have a very common last name that was prominent several years ago because at least one famous person had that last name. Said famous person is White. I am not.

As a teenager, I kind of got fed up with the way one joker asked, "any relation?" - with a smirk - (as if I had *never* heard that joke ever before) that I just said to him, "I suspect his ancestors probably owned mine."

And that was that.

Books, like the things you read.

Optimism!

I have to spell "Ginger" more often than you'd imagine, even after I say, "Like the spice. Like ginger snaps, gingerbread, ginger ale."

So far one person has said "As in the brothers in Supernatural?" And that was a Colombian hotel desk clerk.

Which reminds me, I need to call Dean the technical support guy for a favour today. It's much lamer to ask someone based on their *first* name, but tech support Dean is indeed a fan of the Winchesters, so dork points scored there.

I have to spell "Ginger" more often than you'd imagine, even after I say, "Like the spice. Like ginger snaps, gingerbread, ginger ale."

Do they all think of the Duggars and their child with the heinous name "Jingur"?

"I suspect his ancestors probably owned mine."

Snap.

My sister and I loosely plan to visit our ancestral clan home on our father's side in Scotland at some time, and plead kinship based on either blood or or ownership. We did use to wear the tartan from time to time.

My last name is tricky. 5 letters but tricky. Sounds like it starts with an L not an E so that throws people off and there's a Z in there,.

The other day I was trying to do something and spelled my name wrong, and the person didn't understand what I said so I went with "E as in elephant, L as in lion, Z as in zebra, I as in ice, E as in elephant." and I get back "Is it spelled TFGIT?

Because it's pronounced LZ people try to throw an L at the beginning. So when asked for my last name I usually say "I'll spell it for you".

And now I feel like a shit heel because tech support Dean is totally running reports for me because I can't work out how to do them myself. It's not his job. It's not about his application. It's just something he mentioned he knew how to do. We don't work for the same company, and this isn't making them any money.

But we will always have Supernatural.

I'm shocked at how often I'm asked to spell my first name. It's the past tense of draw people. I also get a disturbing number of messed up spellings of my first name, I just boggle. My last name I understand being butchered, it's not common and it was originally gaelic, so it's a mess.