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11/08/2016

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Brian Fies

Since I'm on the road today, I helped decide the fate of the world three days ago. You didn't feel the Earth tremble when I slipped my ballot into the slot? Anyway, thanks for not wallowing in the topic, that's what the rest of the Internet and All Media are for today.

My last name is unusual enough that I truly don't care how people mispronounce or misspell it. "Feez" is right; I usually get "fyes" but also "fries, files, freeze, fless, fee-ess." I've heard, and will answer to, them all. An unexpected benefit is that it's an easy instant filter to tell whether someone actually knows me or not. If I pick up the phone and hear "Mr. Fries" we'll be having a very short conversation.

I'll be sharing your "Katelyn" comic because my girls have a friend by that name and I have misspelled it, to their minor irritation. Parents can be dopes. Knowing that we'd be unavoidably saddling our daughters with a weird surname, we made sure to give them common first and middle names for them to choose among. Handicapping a kid right out of the gate is unkind.

Dave from Philadelphia

When I was in 5th grade (I think we had electricity by then ...), there were 5 students with the name David. So for that grade, I became Michael - my middle name. Just a short period of 10 months. To this day (I am now 63), if I am in a room and someone shouts out "Michael?" ... I still turn my head. Amazing how much that imprinted on me.

I leave to vote in about 30 minutes ...

parnellnelson

One part of my job is to generate legal documentation for many of the 9000+ millennials who work here. When I need to look up some of these folks on the internal info web the spellings of the Caitlins, Brittanys and Megans often elicit a "Well, now isn't THAT clever, ha ha ha grumble grumble." Then there are the people here whose "company name" has absolutely NO relationship to their legal given name. Also more and more name pronunciation guides have been appearing and not for employees from the parts of the world where names of 8 syllables and 22 letters are common but for names like Hannah...(HAH-nah). And I have been having to spell my own name for people since I was old enough to spell it for myself. Please, Lord, let me retire...

Paul

It's pronounced P as in psychiatrist, A as in leap, U as in guide, L as in folk.

I turn my head whenever I don't hear anything.

Mike Peterson

Brian, I suggest you start referring to your daughters' friends as "Hotshlinn" with some real chutzpah in that first syllable. See how their parents respond and let me know.

Boise Ed

I have used my middle name since I was a wee one. When I turned 65, I found that Social Security, and thus all the insurance companies, insist upon using my undesired first name. There's no fighting them. I tried writing my congressman about it, and got nothing in return, not even a form letter. Bah.

Mary in Ohio

I voted the first day Medina County had early voting - weeks ago. Got it over with !

Favorite actress : Fionaluala Flanagan. I'm sure I'm misspelling it (I KNOW there's a "u" in there somewhere) and have no idea how to pronounce it. The first name, I mean.
(Senator Bankhead's daughter was named after a tribe of native Americans from the region where she was born.)

Kilby

SMBC did a comic about oddball names just a few days ago: http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/naming-trends

It's worth noting that the SMBC schedule at GoComics appears to have nothing to do with the actual SMBC website.

Sherwood

My parents didn't give me a middle name, forcing me to go with what I've got (which is off-putting to some folks because it seems pretentious) or its diminutive, "Woody," which is a ridiculous fit on a 70 year old man. I loved them dearly, of course, but I don't think I've ever forgiven them for that.

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