[mjn]

One thing that's annoying to me is that governments and employers increasingly believe many of these things, partly because they want to cross-reference names and match canonical forms.

My given names in English are Mark Jason, and that's on my birth certificate. In Greek, they're Μάρκος Ιάσονας, which are the equivalents, and that's on my municipal birth records there (registered as a foreign birth at the time of baptism). There seems to be a move towards wanting to use "accurate" transliterations, though, rather than the more traditional method of translating names to equivalents (Mark<->Markos, George<->Georgios, Paul<->Pavlos, etc.). Sometimes people desire that: maybe someone named Михаил in Russian really doesn't want to be turned into Michael, but wants to go by Mikhail. That's fine, if they prefer. But in my case, I consider each of these translated forms to be my name in the respective languages, and do not consider the transliterated forms to be my name.

But in trying to sort out some paperwork, it appears that what I am supposed to do is one of these two things: 1) change my name in English from Mark Jason to Markos Iasonas, the transliteration of my Greek name; or 2) change my name in Greek from Μάρκος Ιάσονας to Μαρκ Τζέισον, the transliteration of my English name. But I don't want to do either of those things. #2 in particular is ridiculous, because it doesn't decline properly, and is trying to approximate a 'j' sound with 'tz'.

[R_Edward]

Growing up, my parents called me by my middle name, as I share a first name with my dad. (I'd rather be an Edward than a Ralph anyway.) When giving my name to someone, I tell them I'm Edward <Lastname>, as telling them I'm R. Edward <Lastname> just sounds pretentious. But if I'm beginning a relationship with a doctor's office or lawyer, or filling in a tax form, it's Ralph E. Lastname, because that's what's on my birth certificate and SSA record. It is quite annoying when the phone rings, and I don't recognize the calling number, so I answer with a guarded, "This is Ed..." and hear the caller ask, "May I speak to Ralph?" and have to explain to them that I really am Ralph, even though I said I was Ed. But I have to say, my problems are nothing compared to yours!

CSB: My mom signed me up for a book club when I was 6 or 7. For the Firstname field, she wrote, "R Edward" for reasons known only to her. For the next three years, every couple months, I'd get a package addressed to Redward <Lastname>. I could just imagine the shipping clerk in that company reading my shipping label and saying to himself, "Redward... what a goofy name."

[kimlastname]

My name is Kim <Lastname> and I'm a male. Try convincing Americans (and other English speaking countries) about that...

One example: Many years ago I subscribed to TIME and filled out a form where I checked "Mr." Apparently the person who typed in my name decided to "correct" this error and I became a "Mrs."... and I wasn't even married :-)

The company I work at has offices in different cities, so most of the communication are done by email and instant messaging. I see a clear difference between the messages from people who know my gender, and those who probably think I'm female. Even attempts at flirting...

[shirro]

I went to school with a male Kim in Aus. Never even realised it could be a girls name until the 80s when there were several female singers called Kim. Lots of male names seem to become girls names. Ashley is another that seems to have been lost in living memory. Apparently Shirley was once a male name and I am not joking. Between that and boys once wearing dresses until breaching along with pink clothes and long hair and time travel must be really confusing.

[D_hemming]

All the Ashley's I went to school with in the 70s were boys. I often wonder if it's an issue for them these days...

[caf]

Males named Kim go relatively unremarked in Australia at least, perhaps because there have been three well-known male national political figures named Kim in the last 40 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Edward_Beazley

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Beazley

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Carr

[Mvandenbergh]

Kim, like Hilary and Evelyn is a traditional boys name that has somehow become exclusively female over that last half-century or so.

[smcl]

In Scotland there's a fair amount of male Kellys and Lesleys which also appear to have slowly evolved into female names in the rest of the English speaking world (as far as I can see)

[kbenson]

as telling them I'm R. Edward <Lastname> just sounds pretentious

Not to mention it casts serious doubt as to your organic nature.

[SiVal]

Many years ago Safeway, a commonly seen grocery store in the US, started using a Safeway Card to gather data on its customers. Shoppers get lower prices if they use it, so I filled out my paper form. Some non-English speaking data entry clerk in Mexico somehow mistook my middle initial for an "Os" and prepended it to my last name, creating quite a tongue twister.

Safeway checkout clerks are apparently required to thank me by name, using the name that pops up on their screens when I swipe my card. For nearly twenty years now, all over the country, every harried Safeway checker has sent me on my way with, "Thank you Mr., uh, Asperger", or "Thanks, um, Mr. Ostrich", or whatever that bizarre cluster of letters randomly turned into on the way out of their mouths.

At first, I thought I should fix it, but I quickly grew to enjoy the show. I also enjoy the thought of them trying to cross-match Mr. Asperger with other consumer databases.

[jacques_chester]

Some of us get to enjoy name-mangling theatre on all social occasions.

[jacalata]

Try just answering the phone with "hello?" for unknown numbers.

[R_Edward]

At home, I only pick up for known numbers, and let the answering machine screen the rest. At work, they kind of expect you to identify yourself when you pick up the phone. But yes, what you suggest is a workable alternative, where allowed.

[jlgreco]

This is my situation as well. I can't count the number of times I've gotten the "Redward" equivalent.

To compound the problems caused by this, I switched to using my first name as my primary name around the same time as I switched coast. People on the east coast know me as my middle name, people from the west coast know me as my first name. This can come in handy sometimes as it gives me a very quick indication of where I know somebody from, but gave me a good deal of trouble recently at a west-coast wedding with lots of east-coast people attending... The fact that some of my friends were introducing me to other people with just my last name made it quite... interesting.

[L_Rahman]

It's an annoying thing to have to deal with on a regular basis. I'm in the same boat, in that my father and I both have the same first and last names, so I've always gone by my middle name.

Except now when I go to networking events or interviews, I tell people my middle name L* and then they point that out that my name tag or application says my first name is M* and I have to go through the whole song and dance of explaining the situation.

I'm frustrated enough to be looking into getting it legally changed. You might want to consider that as well if only to not have to deal with those phone calls any more.

[kstrauser]

Same here. I get around this by never mentioning my first name unless I'm in a situation where it's legally required, like at a doctor's office or the DMV. That groups down to a small number of cases:

1. If they're working for me, like at the doctor's office, I ask them to please call me by my middle name. They're generally respectful about it and are used to dealing with nicknames and other aliases anyway.

2. In the DMV and other situations, I just grit my teeth and answer by my first name. It's not worth the hassle of explaining and they don't care anyway.

3. If I'm being hired, I fill out my paperwork "officially" and give it to HR, with the explanation that I go by my middle name for all legal purposes.

4. Banks are kind of weird because they perform official government functions, but they're still ultimately working for me. I've only had one bank flat-out refuse to put my middle name on my debit card and checks, and I explained to the branch manager why I was walking out the door before we'd finished opening my account.

[R_Edward]

I've thought about it, but as soon as I do, I think about all the paperwork inevitably involved in making sure my medical history follows me, my pensions and other financial records get updated, and all that other nonsense, and, having nearly half a century of paperwork that ought to be updated, and being an essentially lazy old cuss, I decide that I can live with the annoyance.

[anotherevan]

Not sure why, but your story reminded me of a friend of mine who's always gone by the name, "Mick" (a common shortening for the name Michael in Australia.) The thing is, neither his first or middle names are Michael. It was just a nickname that stuck when he was a kid.

I kid you not, at his wedding when the celebrant said, "Do you Susan, take this man Brian..." his bride exclaimed, "Who's Brian?"

[nobodysfool]

Yea, my daughter's name is a bit unusual, and so the transliteration produces a different name than english. Her name is Thamina. It's an Arabic origin name, so in Arabic it's : ثمينة. Not that she's Arabic at all, she's part Russian, and was born in Russia, so her name is Тхамина in Russian. They transliterate her name in a standard way to Tkhamina on her Russian passport, but on her USA passport it's Thamina.

[ansimionescu]

I feel your pain, although we Romanians use the (standard?) latin alphabet. I had to spell 'Andrei Simionescu' over the phone so many times that I'm sure I could win a couple of spelling bees easily.

Speaking of which, why don't all companies just move to automated support systems already? These guys are doing it right http://www.zocdoc.com/

[Mvandenbergh]

Human names are an excellent illustration of the reason that you shouldn't use 'real' data as a key in a database. If the key is arbitrary and meaningless then it doesn't need to be mutable.

[moheeb]

Change it to Mapcock.