If you could change your first name, what name would you choose?

Radrook

Radrook

Senior Member
Location
USA
The Chinese provide temporary first names for their children and allow them to choose the first name they prefer after reaching adulthood. I think that is a preferable custom than to feel strapped with a name that one doesn't like in the way that most people do. What name would you choose? I would choose Alfonso. My mother changed her first name from Alba to Magaly. I see nothing wrong with the name, Alba which means dawn, But I guess she did.
 

My dad named me and my 3 brothers after US presidents. I like my brother's names more than mine. They're Grant, Hoover, and McKinley (Mac for short). In fact, I named my first son Grant. I'd have named my second son Hoover, but his mom didn't like it, and Hoover told me not to because, as you can imagine, he was teased about it when he was a kid.

Dad named me Franklin, and I wish he would have just named me Frank, but he always called me Mick, anyway. That made me wonder if he regretted naming me Franklin, and it's kinda weird growing up thinking your Dad doesn't like your name. It's probly why I'm not all that fond of it.

Most of the people in my family still call me Mick (or Mickey), but I've never told them I don't really like it.

I do like just plain Frank, though, and that's the name I go by. It isn't worth paying the legal fees to officially drop the l-i-n at the end. It only shows up that way on my drivers license and social security card, and a few legal documents nobody sees.
 

fuzzybuddy said:
I'm a "Richard", and I'm comfortable with that. The nickname "Dick" does have problems.
As for a name change, I like Murrmurr's "Grant".
BTW, I thought of legally changing my middle name, I can't tell you how much I hate that name.
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Sorry guys..Dick would be a HUGE problem here, which is why no-one here called Richard is ever named Dick... and Frank... if anyone called their son''Hoover'' here, it would be presumed he was named after a Vacuum cleaner... his life wouldn't be worth living...:D
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I'm a "Richard", and I'm comfortable with that. The nickname "Dick" does have problems.
As for a name change, I like Murrmurr's "Grant".
BTW, I thought of legally changing my middle name, I can't tell you how much I hate that name.
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My uncle and grandfather were both "Richard." When I was a kid "Uncle Dick" carried no stigma at all.

The first time I can remember hearing the name used in the lewd context was when we moved while I was in the 6th Grade.

I think it was my first day at the inner city school after transferring from a small suburban/farming town school. A Mexican kid told me a joke that the name figures prominently in. I didn't get the joke at all.

I wasn't raised Amish, or overtly religious or anything. We just didn't use that kind of language.
 
Radrook said:
The Chinese provide temporary first names for their children and allow them to choose the first name they prefer after reaching adulthood. I think that is a preferable custom than to feel strapped with a name that one doesn't like in the way that most people do. What name would you choose? I would choose Alfonso. My mother changed her first name from Alba to Magaly. I see nothing wrong with the name, Alba which means dawn, But I guess she did.
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Call a lawyer. You will also need the birth certificate. Sting - Sundance - Hershel to Herky.
 
I got tired very early in life of having to say, "Yes, it's _______ but spelled with a ___."

My middle name? "No, it doesn't have an ___ in it. Yes, that IS how it's spelled!"

And my last name....if you can spell it, you can't pronounce it correctly. If you can pronounce it correctly, you can't spell it right. And autocorrect changes it to an unflattering term.

My mom got my first and middle name from the obituary of an old lady who lived down the street. I wish the old lady had lived at least a few months longer. Sigh.

There was a mysterious and invisible little girl named Pansy Swastika who lived in my grandmother's house. "Who broke that vase? *Nobody* knows who broke that vase? Well, it must have been Pansy Swastika, then. It's Pansy's fault that nobody is getting ice cream this afternoon. Take it up with HER."

I use that name occasionally when I'm signing up for stuff.
 
jujube said:
I got tired very early in life of having to say, "Yes, it's _______ but spelled with a ___."

My middle name? "No, it doesn't have an ___ in it. Yes, that IS how it's spelled!"

And my last name....if you can spell it, you can't pronounce it correctly. If you can pronounce it correctly, you can't spell it right. And autocorrect changes it to an unflattering term.

My mom got my first and middle name from the obituary of an old lady who lived down the street. I wish the old lady had lived at least a few months longer. Sigh.

There was a mysterious and invisible little girl named Pansy Swastika who lived in my grandmother's house. "Who broke that vase? *Nobody* knows who broke that vase? Well, it must have been Pansy Swastika, then. It's Pansy's fault that nobody is getting ice cream this afternoon. Take it up with HER."

I use that name occasionally when I'm signing up for stuff.
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Your frustration is perfectly understandable. Who likes to have people mispronouncing our name in all kinds of crazy and sometimes even offensive ways? I had one dude wanting to throw hands with me because I calmly told him he was mispronouncing my surname wrong. Other people replied with: "Whatever!" Yet others at a medical clinic responded with: "Well that's the way we say it around here so you better get used to it!" Another, this elderly female pharmacy clerk,, called me on the phone because she was angry that had in insisted on having my surname pronounced right. She began angrily shouting the wrong and indecent mispronunciation at me over the phone.
 
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fuzzybuddy said:
I'm a "Richard", and I'm comfortable with that. The nickname "Dick" does have problems.
As for a name change, I like Murrmurr's "Grant".
BTW, I thought of legally changing my middle name, I can't tell you how much I hate that name.
Click to expand...
My uncle always gave the new baby's a nickname, so there was Poopsie, and Tomorrow and when he went for Dick for our new baby Richard, I said no, so he nicknamed our new son Charlie. We called him Ricky until he was about 12 then he preferred Rick which he still is and he was 63 last March. I believe he likes it.

I hate my first name and I have never been able to ditch it! I'll die with it , but I would have loved to change it to almost anything else. I quite like my middle name and in high school I almost got to use it. At home everyone called me by the first name, so that the name my DH used too, so I am stuck with it.
 
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fuzzybuddy said:
I'm a "Richard", and I'm comfortable with that. The nickname "Dick" does have problems.
As for a name change, I like Murrmurr's "Grant".
BTW, I thought of legally changing my middle name, I can't tell you how much I hate that name.
Click to expand...
I have also considered that option. But the legal confusion I imagine it might generate at different government agencies, and all the paperwork involved, always dissuaded me. But had I to do it over again, I would have done it upon reaching adulthood and avoided all the bitter experiences related to its purposeful mispronunciation, a well as other annoying reactions that my unusual first name and surname combo generates among certain people in the USA.
 
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Radrook said:
Your frustration is perfectly understandable. Who likes to have people mispronouncing our name in all kinds of crazy and sometimes even offensive ways? I had one dude wanting to throw hands with me because I calmly told him he was mispronouncing my surname wrong. Other people replied with: "Whatever!" Yet others at a medical clinic responded with: "Well that's the way we say it around here so you better get used to it!" Another pharmacy employee, this elderly woman, called me on the phone because she was angry that I insisted that my surname was not pronounced in a certain way. She began angrily shouting the wrong indecent pronunciation at me over the phone.
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My late brother-in-law pronounced his last name the way it's spelled, not the way the rest of the family pronounced it.

I asked him why and he said that after six years in the Marines telling a sarge how his name should be pronounced and hearing, "LISTEN UP, MAGGOT! IF I SAY YOUR NAME IS _______, THAT'S WHAT YOUR NAME IS!", he just went with the flow. Much easier.

One of my late husband's best pals in Army basic had one of those unpronounceable Slavic names with many z's and y's and letters that don't usually go together and he was just "Alphabet!" to the Drill Instructors. I'm sure there was at least one Alphabet! in every platoon.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I'm a "Richard", and I'm comfortable with that. The nickname "Dick" does have problems.
As for a name change, I like Murrmurr's "Grant".
BTW, I thought of legally changing my middle name, I can't tell you how much I hate that name.
Click to expand...
I have always wondered how they get from the name Richard to the name Dick. They don't seem visually similar at all.
 
jujube said:
My late brother-in-law pronounced his last name the way it's spelled, not the way the rest of the family pronounced it.

I asked him why and he said that after six years in the Marines telling a sarge how his name should be pronounced and hearing, "LISTEN UP, MAGGOT! IF I SAY YOUR NAME IS _______, THAT'S WHAT YOUR NAME IS!", he just went with the flow. Much easier.

One of my late husband's best pals in Army basic had one of those unpronounceable Slavic names with many z's and y's and letters that don't usually go together and he was just "Alphabet!" to the Drill Instructors. I'm sure there was at least one Alphabet! in every platoon.
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Yep! They seem to consider getting on a recruit's nerves an essential part of the toughening up process.
 

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