h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When my parents came to choosing my name I wish they'd thought it through.
My first name is a Poppy - November 11th is never much fun!
My surname is seriously unfortunate in modern english (even though it is of British origin) and my initials spell out PAW!
I'm just glad my middle names slightly more sensible!
School life was and is predictably "colourful".
But all things said, I actually quite like my name...even if other people find it funny.
Does anybody with an "unfortunate" name wish they had a more sensible one?

I HATED my name when I was younger. It doesn't spell out or sound like anything that would be an obvious target for attention, but it's a very uncommon name, is spelled even more uncommonly, and frequently misprounounced. As a child I hated the fact that everyone else could get personalised school things, personalised signs for their bikes and room doors; you could buy almost anything personalised with 'Mike' or 'Lucy' or 'Amanda' or 'John', but nothing even came close to mine.

A lot of people, when meeting me for the first time, will ask me if my name is a shortened form of something else (it's not).

But as I've gotten older I've really come to appreciate my uniqueness. In my lifetime I've only ever met a handful of others who share my name, and most of those *were* a shortened form of something else; only one other person I've met shares my real name, and it was spelled differently.

The nice thing these days is that in most environments I only need one name - like Madonna or Elvis - because there's only one of me.

You'd think I'd always find the door signs and key rings with my name on but it's amazing how few times I have ever found one with my name on it.

I suppose I should really appreciate my name. I mean with my family, If you said the names John or Mary half the population would answer.
And as for my surname - that my family heritage and I wouldn't change it for the world!

Cheers

I have a niece called Patricia Pamela, who does not take well to being nicknamed PeePee. PeeTwo, yes, if "Tricia" is too much, but most definitely not Peepee.

I always impressed upon my children that when they named their own babies, they should:
a) write the name in full and say it out loud
b) write out the initials and say them aloud
c) choose names that were pronounced the way they looked

(I used to be a teacher)

Having said all that, you can't win them all. I was at school with a girl named D. Day,- but she was born in 1942 or 43!