A Conversation for Ask h2g2
Alternative Christian Name
The Groob Started conversation Mar 30, 2003
If you hadn't been given your christian name, what name would you have liked to be called? Also, if you had to choose another name for h2g2, what name would it be?
Alternative First Name
Saturnine Posted Mar 30, 2003
*coughs loudly*
How politically incorrect!! I am offended!! That the *norm* is of a Christian denomination!
Alternative First Name
dasilva Posted Mar 30, 2003
Given names then!!!!
If I was born a girl I would have been Sonja.
Online I am always daSilva, not just here
Alternative First Name
Hoovooloo Posted Mar 30, 2003
Interesting. Spink spells it "christian name", lower case c, as though the word christian is simply a synonym for first - which I suspect it is for most people in this country. I mean, 72% of Britons ticked the "Christian" box on the census, but there certainly weren't 40 million people in church this morning, because they were far too busy getting in my way at the shops...
Whereas Saturnine, who I am in no way accusing of looking for an argument, actually applies an upper-case "C" to the word "Christian", legitimising it as a reference to a religion.
I was in a queue at a railway station once and the person in front of me was Jewish. I mean, I'm not sensitive to religion or anything, this guy was quite clearly a Rabbi. We were both there to apply for discount railcards, his for being a pensioner and me for being a young'un. So he's in the queue in front of me, and the lady behind the counter says "Can I have you name please?", and he says something like "It's Rabbi Goldberg". And she fills in the form and says "And what's your Christian name?", and the old guy just looked at her, just for a moment, before saying "My FOYST name, Miss, is Saul." I do not think for a moment she realised what she had said, before or after.
"christian", in the context of names, just means the same as "first" to most people in Britain nowadays in much the same way that "hoover" means vacuum cleaner and a Xerox machine could quite easily have been built by Canon.
H.
Alternative First Name
dasilva Posted Mar 30, 2003
And they still insist on calling them photocopiers instead of photostat machines
(A photocopier takes a genuine photograph onto paper which needs to be developed, usually a large, flatbed camera weighing the best part of a tonne )
Alternative First Name
Phryne- 'Best Suppurating Actress' Posted Mar 30, 2003
You think I use my real birth name? At *all*? 
all my life I have been compiling alternatives. Then one day my ma says she wishes she'd called me 'Emily', which would have been far superior to what I've got... 
it does not help having a stoopid family name too.
top of the list are Elinor, Emily, n' Audrey. I will have to live nomi-vicariously thru my future offspring.
as for h2 names I was 'Malice Aforethought' a few weeks ago and nobody knew me. Trick is striking the balance of online anonymity in RL, so only people you want to say 'Ah, you must be that bird off the internet' rather than 'It was you mocking me on that website. Now you will die.'
Which so far have not happened.
Alternative First Name
Saturnine Posted Mar 30, 2003
I was just picking up on the proper meaning instead of the lazy interpretation...
...honest...
...really...
Alternative First Name
sdotyam Posted Mar 30, 2003
I would have choosen Steve. Nice and manly and macho. Steve McQueen was my hero when I was younger. No reason to change my sign-on name as I choose it in the first place!
Alternative First Name
Z Posted Mar 30, 2003
my real name's Steve.. ask any one who was at the meet last night, and it won't seem so macho!
I was almost Z in real life but really, you need a letter not an itial..
Alternative First Name
Peaches Posted Mar 31, 2003
I'd quite like a Shakespearian name - Mariana, Desdemona or Portia.
For names of men I actually quite like 'Christian' (just to confuse matters...)
Alternative First Name
Whisky Posted Mar 31, 2003
**falls on the floor in a fit of hysterical giggling**
Did I really just read our dear Saturnine telling someone off for not being PC?
Alternative First Name
Archaris Kitten, one small aching heart in the infinite void Posted Mar 31, 2003
I nearly got called Ianthe, which means Violet (my granny's name, except she put her foot down!)
And even though I'm female and grown up, my Dad still calls me Jock... 
Alternative First Name
The Groob Posted Mar 31, 2003
I've given this some thought today. I quite like Wolfgang.
Alternative First Name
ourmanflint " my name is Klaatu " Posted Mar 31, 2003
when I was 10 years old, I hated my first name, and desperately wanted to change it to something cool ..like...
colin or Jeff ( with a J not a G ).. thank god I didn't!
( no offence to any Colin's or Jeff's by the way)
Alternative First Name
Just Bob aka Robert Thompson, plugging my film blog cinemainferno-blog.blogspot.co.uk Posted Mar 31, 2003
I've lived with this name all my life, and I don't think I could get used to another. Besides, there's nothing particularly wrong with 'Robert'.
Having said that, Dante is a very cool name. My younger sister has said that if she ever has children, she will call a boy Dante and a girl Alisha (not Alicia).
Alternative First Name
egon Posted Mar 31, 2003
My surname's Porter, and I've always wondered, if my parents were bigger country music fans, if they would have named me after Porter Wagoner.
Then I copuld have been "Porter Porter" or Possibly "Wagoner Porter"
Alternative First Name
Z Posted Mar 31, 2003
Humm remember aforementioned child does have to go to school, my (greek) mother called my brother Alexis, which is a girls names in this contry by accident, he had trouble when they found out was Alex was short for!
Alternative First Name
egon Posted Mar 31, 2003
I always used to get laughed at at school when people found out my middle name.
Alternative First Name
Pinniped Posted Mar 31, 2003
I know a guy called Torin. That's a 
name.
As for a h2g2 alternative, I've toyed with, but never quite gone for "Roofle"
Key: Complain about this post
Alternative Christian Name
- 1: The Groob (Mar 30, 2003)
- 2: Saturnine (Mar 30, 2003)
- 3: The Groob (Mar 30, 2003)
- 4: dasilva (Mar 30, 2003)
- 5: Hoovooloo (Mar 30, 2003)
- 6: dasilva (Mar 30, 2003)
- 7: Phryne- 'Best Suppurating Actress' (Mar 30, 2003)
- 8: Saturnine (Mar 30, 2003)
- 9: sdotyam (Mar 30, 2003)
- 10: Z (Mar 30, 2003)
- 11: Peaches (Mar 31, 2003)
- 12: Whisky (Mar 31, 2003)
- 13: Archaris Kitten, one small aching heart in the infinite void (Mar 31, 2003)
- 14: The Groob (Mar 31, 2003)
- 15: ourmanflint " my name is Klaatu " (Mar 31, 2003)
- 16: Just Bob aka Robert Thompson, plugging my film blog cinemainferno-blog.blogspot.co.uk (Mar 31, 2003)
- 17: egon (Mar 31, 2003)
- 18: Z (Mar 31, 2003)
- 19: egon (Mar 31, 2003)
- 20: Pinniped (Mar 31, 2003)
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