Did anyone else get teased when they were young for having a 'foreign' last name?
Mine is Hungarian and although it's pretty easy to pronounce I was teased quite a bit for it.
Although the United States claims to be a 'melting pot' and people from so many different countries have come here to start anew it's still considered 'standard' for people to have names dirived from the English language.
Why is that? Any theories?

lol

My name is Jérôme Jérémy Paul Archibald, Klyszewski-Janas

On the Knyszewski part, in france I was "nicknamed" by a kid at school "couille en ski" (trans: nuts on skis)
He got rewarded with a bloody nose, but now I think its funny, I even called him up few yrs ago to apologize lol

The other funny thing is when i get pulled over for speeding on one of my motorcycles in Texas, I show my French passeport to the officer of peace and it reads:

noms:Klyszewski usage Klyszewski-Janas
Prenoms: Jérôme Jérémy Paul Archibald

So everytime an cop looks at it they kinda freak out or are left "mucho" puzzled and they point with finger to "Jerome" and ask "is that ur first name" and with my worstest french accent I confirm, they they point at "Archibald" and ask is that my "last" name...I confirm again...So they write on ticket Jerome Archibald (which are two """first names""")

My last name on Passeport looks so odd, they never considere it as a name, probably a code or something.

In 4 years of dashing madly through the southern US i got pulled over many times, but only "Jerome Archibald" got tickets...



.

But in America, you're all foreigners Except the native Americans of course.

Smiley said:

ian said:

It's funny, in the US we recognize eachother by what nationality we come from, but overseas they call us "gringo's" which I'm told means 'very good friend'.
So we got that going for ush...

My last name is Japanese, so people are constantly adding an extra -ma or taking away an -ma! You can't do that assface.

My name is foreign. Sometimes people have difficulty pronouncing it, I just correct them and it is ok. Some of the mail I get is hilarious. The way they spell my name!

Lleena said:

King's College e-mailed me

Natsume said:

Do you have a place at Kings Nat?

You are going to love London.

Natsume said:

Lleena said:

No... they want an updated transcript. I have to have a 3.5 GPA for the lit major there, and right now I have a 3.58 with 4 more quarters to keep it up. We'll see if I can do it.

The narrative eval I received from a class last quarter really fucked me up. It's cruel and inaccurate. I'm going to see if I can fight it. (The whole class was based on one fucking paper, and it was a shitty class anyway. I only took it because every other fucking class was full.)

"Chose a broad and highly generalized topic, hardly suited to a short treatment. As a result, the argument suffers from lack of depth and insufficient documentation of the main points."

ASSHOLE. If he keeps me from London I'm going to kick his ass.

(Sorry for threadjacking apples... I am just very pissed at the moment.)

Has it been marked by an external moderator? I am sure you will do it Natsume. Keep your chin up!

One of My Art lecturers is an annoying chinless wonder.

He kept saying: BUT IS THAT ART? Obviously his definition of art and mine are not the same. I said: Yes it is art, now shaddup.


Well I didn't tell him to shuttup but you know what I mean. I can sympathise !

Natsume said:

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you.

You're gonna love London.

Lleena said:

Now that's unfortunate. I know your real name Lleena, and frankly I don't know how anyone could possibly mispronounce "Slappy McGee." That's a beautiful mellifluous name...

And the wind whispered Slappy McGee...

Natsume said:

Cool Nat!

applekisses said:

My last name is German, and the second half of its spelling has changed over several generations. But its pronunciation is of course the same, and I was born in the states. I never got teased about, but my better half actually giggled when I told him what it was the first time. Can you believe that shit???

To answer your second question; maybe some Americans expect others to have English derived names because they seem to subconsciously expect the assimilation process to make everyone 100% Americanized in every facet. 'Tis not to be.

Supernova said:

Great post Yvette!

Lleena said:

Bzzztt! Not quite, Lleena, my English friend.

My name is Butthole McGuillakutty, so yes it is a bit foreign and people do make fun of it.
Bastards!

Lleena said:

annoying chinless wonder... LMAO

I hope to make it over to London, I really do. Fuck America!





Ahem. Anyway.

I will keep everyone updated.

Fingers crossed for ya Natsume, hope to see you in London real soon (you'll have to drop up to Scotland and visit us, my missus will do some Japanese food )

ian said:

Thanks ian!

You would not believe the lack of good Japanese food here in Santa Cruz. The stuff they have is only mediocre and expensive.

I'm planning on hitting all the other countries while I'm up (goo, still doing Paris?) so I hope to see the lot of you while I'm up there.

Because I am going, goddamnit.

XNY said:

Surrre.

Supernova said:

You just wish you had as many good friends as I do.

It's cool having a name that's different from the mainstream cuz what maybe a common name elsewhere may possibly be quite unique here and further distinguish you. No one has EVER forgotten my name after meeting me, but I can't seem to remember the Beckys, Sues, Marys, Johns, Toms, etc.

[This message was edited Fri Feb 28 11:11:54 PST 2003 by ScarLett]

No one has ever pronounced my last name correctly. I have heard some crazy variations... people usually go for one particular way to pronounce it, which is actually quite funny to me.

i was named after a soap opera guy///they have such long names..

XNY said:

...my last name is hispanic, and since the Spanish invaded America 200 years before the English did, then I guess it's not really "foreign".

BTW - in case you're ever on Jeopardy - the origin of the word GRINGO comes from the war with Mexico. When the US invaded Mexico, the people on the streets would shout at the troops, (refering to the color of their uniforms); "Green Go Home! Green Go Home!"

Funny...now it's the Americans telling the Mexicans to go home!