I know this is going to piss off a lot of people, but I absolutely hate (East) Asian people with (made up) Christian first names. You know, you’re on e-mail or whatever and they sign off “Jenny” and you’re like, cool, she sounds nice enough.
Then you see them in person some 3 weeks later.
They’re actually a “Guan” or someother mono-syllable yet unpronouncable thing and don’t really know too many English words.
It’s fucking annoying. Don’t do it.
(Aforementioned names were made up. You know, privacy and such.)
lol. In the ladies golf tour, the implosion of Korean golfers have led to a few of them to change their names to differentiate themselves. This is unrelated to the above, but its kinda funny when you notice a name like ‘Birdie Kim’ or ‘Young Kim’. It’s weird.
http://www.lpga.com/player_results.aspx?alpha=k
what about all those people working at call centers in india? they all make up american names. which is fine for work purposes i guess, but then it’s so silly when they call up indian people. my mom’s started asking what their real names are.
It does not matter, name is just something for others to call and “identify” oneself…..don’t be too serious on that unless you’re gonna call yourself bin ladin.
Adi: That’s exactly what I mean. Even if it is a different circumstance, it’s just as weird, or more, because you’re staring straight at them and they’re insisting they’re a “Birdie”.
No ma’am, you clearly are not.
anita: Those people tend to annoy me too, but nearly not as much, but only because I can feel it coming a mile away. I don’t expect otherwise. When someone’s a “Sarah” and she pronounces my name perfectly and has a heavily affected American accent, I too just ask her whether her real name is a “Saraswathy” or whatever. (As in your mom isn’t the only one.)
Sometimes they giggle, sometimes they say things like they aren’t supposed to let out that information. Eitherway, they don’t insist they’re someone they’re clearly not. The real problem I think I have is what I’ve explained to the next commenter below.
stchatterbox: If it’s just a means of identification, why don’t you just stick to your real name? I will probably mispronounce “Guan” the first few times, but once you correct me I will know.
There is no reason to go about CHANGING how you expect people to refer to you just because you’re worried they might have a hard time remembering it or pronouncing it or whatever.
I have a hard to pronounce last name (and a first name that is easy to pronounce but always messed up). I keep correcting people. I don’t start calling myself “John” or something, and keep insisting I am “John” when someone’s staring straight at me and I’m clearly not.
yeah, i understood what you were talking about, and i know that the call centers are a totally different matter. i just think it’s funny. because if anything, it would be fine if those call center people used their real names since no one actually NEEDS to remember their names.
I think it’s basically the same concept, they’re trying to avoid (additional) awkwardness around the people they’re trying to help. Suppose “Big Jim” from some small town calls in for help and he’s trying to talk to the helper lady (using her name) and she goes, you can call me “Arundhati” or something, I’m sure Jim wouldn’t be too pleased.
hmm…i don’t know if anyone WOULD actually ask for (or want to use) the person’s name though. at least, i never have. i always felt like the companies told them to use fake names to make it seem like they weren’t located in another country. because some americans may get annoyed by that.
Yes, but I’m guessing, it’s more like this:
Companies usually make them give out their names—you know, to make the experience seem somewhat personal. And in case these are employees in another country, they make them use fake names, as hard-to-say-and-clearly-foreign (they took ahr jahbs!) names are worse than no name at all.