What’s In A Name

I have a fairly common, boring name among the locals. It’s a combination of two Arabic words (my name has a lovely meaning in Arabic if I may say so myself). I dislike the common short version of my name and loathe it when people call me by that name. I have a different nickname and whenever people ask me why my nickname is that instead of the usual one they assume should be my nickname, I’d sigh inwardly and explain. Really, just because my name is Xxx doesn’t mean I like to be called Xx! Despite being fairly common, my given name has been misspelt a number of times. I’m amazed with how creative some people can be: they either add an extra vowel in front or at the end of my name; in fact my one-word name has also been broken down into two a few times much to my dismay.

A friend who is currently working in Egypt has his surname re-spelt to adhere to the local spelling. I asked him if this annoyed him and he said no, it didn’t matter or make any difference to him, and besides he’s in their country anyway. Not for me: I dislike it if people misspelt any part of my name, either my given name or surname. I insisted on having my two-word surname stay as my surname throughout my university years (good thing the university accepted a lot of international students and did not find a two-word surname unusual). However, I had to hyphenate my surname at graduate school; even the bank I opened my accounts with also hyphenated my surname due to their system requirement (so it was either using the second name as my surname or hyphenating it). Fine, I could still live with that.

When I came back from graduate school, I discovered that the Admin Unit had misspelt my surname so my emails all bear a misspelling of my surname... so I made sure my name cards were all printed correctly. This may be a trivial matter to some and even Shakespeare in Romeo & Juliet quoted ‘What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ Well, Shakespeare, thou may have a point but as my name forms part of my identity, I insist that it be spelt correctly.

Wishing everyone a blessed Eid-al Adha. Oh, on that note, I have a cousin who was born during Eid-al Fitri. No prize for guessing what his name is.

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Arsenal beat Chelshit in the Sunday derby to regain top spot from ManUre who beat Liverpool just hours earlier. Thankfully, Wenger’s gamble by fielding Hleb, Flamini and Fàbregas paid off. And, get this: Almunia was man of the match!