There are two issues with my name that pop up with astonishing regularity.
The first is the number of people who read my first name as “Markos”. I don’t know where they get that extra S at the end, but it happens a lot, and it’s genuinely puzzling to me. Is it because Marco is not a very common first name in the US, and that most of the wearers of that name spell it with a C? I suspect that a lot of people read Marko and have their brain’s autocomplete spit out Markos because that’s a somewhat common Greek name.
The second is the annoying reliability of someone saying “Polo” whenever some barista or fast food counter person calls out my first name to let me know my order is ready. 75% of the time, someone will go “POLO! Nyuk nyuk.” Fifty percent of the “Polo” people at least have the presence of mind to notice my pained smile and say something like “I bet you get that a lot.”
NO SIR, I’VE NEVER HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE AND OH MY GOD IT’S HILARIOUS.
I swear, it happens so often that I have started giving fake names to the counter people. I’ve even stopped using my Panera loyalty card because it puts my name right on the receipt and undermines my attempt to squeeze by as “Mark” or “Mike”.
I really need to get an easy-to-remember pen name with maybe some added stud cachet. Like “Thorn Magnum”, or “John Ringo”.
“John Ringo”? Seriously?
You’ll have people left and right assuring you that you’re ‘No Daisy’ at all.
And perhaps too high strung as well.
I get the “don’t say ‘Hi’ to you at an airport..Haw Haw Haw!
Regular riot, those folks.
I can attest to the first one. I remember doing the Markos thing, in writing no less, after we met in person the first time.
I have a perfectly obscure Scandinavian name and spelling. One vowel and 6 consonants.
I get perverse pleasure in writing it and watching 99% of the people I interact with go cross eyed trying to come up with something to call me.
Mine has sounds that have not existed in English since Beowulf was being recited as news.
I’m of the age that if I hear “Markos,” I’d wonder about which part of your family came from Manila. I get people trying to be cute and applying nicknames that I never use.
I had to change how I write my last name because of people mis-reading the K as an H and saying an Anglo-Saxon epithet, then wondering why I get irked. (The name is Anglo-Dutch).
Gristle McThornbody. Bolt Vander Huge. Slate Fistcrunch.
I have a very uncommon first name as well, That is misheard or mispronounced MUCH more often than not. Its compounded by having a last name that is not an uncommon first name, to the point where I have actually had people, in all seriousness, ask me to my face if I was certain I hadn’t switched them accidentally. SERIOUSLY!??!
Its lead me to go by a pseudonym of “Stan” in situations where my name doesn’t matter for years. Drunken college parties, pickup orders in restaurants, reservations, etc. I’ve found the trick is to pick a name, but it has to be something that fits everyone’s paradigm of what a name should be, but is still uncommon enough that you don’t have 5 people answering to the name.
Stan has served me will, and Gill has been used in a few occasions (apparently bowling alleys have a much higher occurrences of Stans than one would assume)
Okay, how many get the pronunciation of your LAST name right?
Not many, I’ll bet.
My dry cleaner is from Korea, and he pronounces my last name as Dodgy. I get called Marcus sometimes or Marky Mark by some. Part of my reaction is based on who can call me what. Friends are okay, strangers, not so much.
Do you have a middle name? Perhaps you could become M. Wilhelm Kloos, for example?
Did you ever notice Robert Heinlein’s penchant for using Biblical first names for his characters? Nehemiah, Jacob, Lazarus, Zebediah, Jubal, Ezra.
I hear by dub you “Sir Sam” to get totally of base from Mr Polo
Garrett Breedlove has a nice ring to it…
I like Col. Duke Lacross. Most people don’t get it, but those that do think it’s pretty hilarious.
My name is Jenni and I was in high school when Forrest Gump came out. Just saying.
My first name is Tavis. rhymes with davis. Almost everybody puts an r in it . I gave up trying to use checks.
Heh, and your last name is my brother’s middle (and use) name. (He doesn’t care for and doesn’t use his first name.)
Actually, your “R” complaint makes perfect sense to me, since clearly we’re somehow joined through the ether via my brother. My legal first name is “Ochressandro” (which, no, no one ever really uses, except telemarketers) but sometimes people who look at my ID or credit card ask me how to pronounce it. And which, after I have pronounced it, they proceed to mangle horribly, most frequently by dropping the second “R”. Which is evidently ending up in your name. 😉
And my father is “Darro” not Darrell, my grandfather was “Gerald” with g pronounced like the g in green not like a j. The other grandfather was Cipriano Romero which brings us to why my parents just went with “Jennifer Lynn” like every other parent giving birth in the late 70’s.
Anagrams are always fun: “Karlos Mook” the “Morals Kook”.
“Karlos the international wordsmith” has a nice ring to it.
The “Donner Party” works pretty well for restaurant reservations.
Markos because of Markos Moulitsas (daily Kos)?
As for your AKA, I’m torn between Mork and Hanz Fritzbeefcake 😉
Hanz Currywurst is obviously a better bet. 😉
Yeah… My first name (as mentioned elsethread) is “Ochressandro”. I shorten that to “Sandro” at work and on the Facebooks. And, being an uncommon nickname, proceed to get “Sandra” all the time. Even on Facebook. Where the people typing it in have just seen it typed out.
Sandra is a girl’s name. I am very definitively not a girl. I am a boy. I have the facial fluff to prove it at first glance, and other bits to prove it to, erm, very close friends. 😉
“Ochressandro”
That’s lovely. I want to kind of roll it around. Definitely masculine.
Until you meet him and find out he’s a big teddy bear pansy kinda guy.
I’ve heard that “Winston Smith” works pretty well.
Carlos Danger
I’ve been leaving my name at any establishment that asks for it as “Doctor Nelson” for over 2 decades. Nobody ever asks for ID, and only a couple of times have people started to ask for medical advice. I always immediately reply that, “I’m not that kind of a doctor.” Seems to simplify things. . . .
As for a pen name, I know I won’t be the only one to suggest “Major Caudill”, but I’m sure you’re tired of that one. 😉