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From: deb5@ellis.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: Pronouncing your name in another language
Message-ID: <1995Jan13.052100.6486@midway.uchicago.edu>
Sender: news@uchinews.uchicago.edu (News System)
Reply-To: deb5@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago
References: <J8yYBWU.padrote@delphi.com> <moose-1101951036570001@pacsci-28.pacsci.org> <1995Jan11.164738.1@ctdvx5.priv.ornl.gov>
Date: Fri, 13 Jan 1995 05:21:00 GMT
Lines: 37

In article <1995Jan11.164738.1@ctdvx5.priv.ornl.gov> s25@ctdvx5.priv.ornl.gov writes:
>In article <moose-1101951036570001@pacsci-28.pacsci.org>,
>     moose@halcyon.com (Moosenose) writes:
> 
>> Along similar lines, how many people "translate" their names into the
>> language they are speaking at the time?
>
>I'd have to vote against this practice in most cases. If you meet someone
>named Jose in the United States you're not going to call him Joe.

That should depend on his personal preference.  It's a constant battle 
for my friend Elisa to insist on the proper Castilian pronunciation of 
her name. By contrast, both my friends named "Francisco" went by 
"Frank" (which I always thought was unfortunate, but it never seemed
to bother them) and my sister's fiance is never "DaVEEDH" (his
father named him "David," a comparitively rare name in Spain, because 
it was one of the few spelled identically in English and Spanish).  

In general, though, my hispanic friends and acquaintances have kept 
the original forms of their names (Alejo, Moises, Jaime, etc.)  Some, 
like Angel and Mireia, really had no other choice.    

On the other hand, almost all of my East Asian friends have adopted
Christian names (most of them are Koreans, so the term is accurate).
Some of them also had no other choice:  I think, for example, of a 
Vietnamese man named "Phuc" who got sick of never being called by 
his first name.  He's called "Phil" now. ^_^

Most of my South Asia friends have also kept the original forms of
their names, but there is one prominent exception:  my friend Ipsita
wanted a less-unusual form to use with shallow acquaintances (like
store clerks and pick-up artists).  Her name means "desired one"
(I presume in Sanskrit) so she now has the alias "Desiree."
-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
