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

OK, so the Palestinian Prime Minister resigned last week. Every single report I heard about the guy on the radio referred to him as "Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen." (I may have spelled these wrong, I've never seen them written down)

What is this about? You don't hear about the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, also known as Derek Francis, do you?

An now he's apparently being replaced by another guy who's "also known as" something else. Is there some cultural reason why these guys appear to have two completely different names, one of which always seems to begin with "Abu"?

H.

Well Ant does'nt seem to to be on the hitlist of various Isreali assassins!!!

Well, yes. But if they know he has two names its not really much protection is it?


Geggs

Maybe it's his H2G2 nickname!

A guy also know as Woodpigeon

Apparently in Muslim naming tradition, Abu indicates 'father of' so evidently it means 'Mazen's Dad'. Poor Mazen. It's enough having a parent like that without the inevitable 'Who's your daddy?' comments presented on the international political arena.

Off to name my first born Desouffle, and think of some others.

Khat-Bedtime.

Wah-biddy-biddy-bum-biddy-boo.

H.

Lee Anne Search.

H.

Am glad I didn't post something about 'Leon' earlier...

*hoping someone actually shows up who can answer the question in post 1 a bit more thoroughly as I've been wondering this myself*

I was wondering about this myself. Is it to confuse Israeli assasination attempts? Maybe the Palestinian voting system elects people based on alphabetical order? Perhaps they're trying to impress George "also known as Dubya" Bush?

I once read a biography of Yassir Arafat which began by citing his name in full. This took up about a line and a half of print, and didn't include the name 'Yassir', which he adopted as a nickname. (I can't remember why).

PS I think 'bin' means 'from'.

"Bin" means 'son of', I assume, as it's from the same route as "Ben".



x x Dorothy

In my dictionary (and it's a BIG dictionary, not a piddly little pocket one) it says of Paul Gascoigne : known as 'Gazza'.

Research shows that names given to us can influence our eventual personality. Somebody with a 'nerdy' name (and I wont give examples incase anyone here has that name)
may strive to make more of themselves to compensate for their name. Of course, nerdy parents probably give their kids nerdy names, so it may be more nature than nurture.

In my dictionary (and it's a BIG dictionary, not a piddly little pocket one) it says of Paul Gascoigne : known as 'Gazza'.

Research shows that names given to us can influence our eventual personality. Somebody with a 'nerdy' name (and I wont give examples incase anyone here has that name)
may strive to make more of themselves to compensate for their name. Of course, nerdy parents probably give their kids nerdy names, so it may be more nature than nurture.

Joseph Jugoshevelli changed his name to Stalin which means "man of steel". To the Tsarist authorities he was always Joseph Jugoshevelli aka Stalin.

And not forgetting Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov.

Nor Duane Dibley.

I was on a bus with my mates and a girl got on who looked exactly the same as Louise Woodward - the baby trial girl. It couldn't have been LW because she was in the states at the time. We all laughed and the girl was getting very stroppy (that must have happened a lot).

On the aka theme, do you think that people with the same name as a mass murderer changed their name, so for example, if your real name was Myra Hindley would you become Jane Smith aka Myra Hindley?

In bengali tradition the family name comes first and the christian(sic) name comes second eg. Abdul Hannan or Hanif Mohammed two people everyone had got used to calling Abbey and Hanif suddenly and confusingly became Hnannan and Mohammed in the class register when we got to secondary school.

Also catholics get to have a different confirmation name. Do nuns use that name when they marry jesus or do they get yet another name?

I blame Jesus actually, he went round giving people extra names willy nilly. Changes the name of a religion and names it after himself. Show-off.

He started the whole trend. The Wako cult was started by a man who had changed his name to David Koresh , then started going around calling himself jesus, But as Bill Hicks said who's going to follow a messiah called Vernon?

The researcher formerly known as badger.

Certain African traditions have boys taking a new name when they turn 13, and "become a man", passing rites of passge and so forth. It could be the same in Middle Eastern traditions.

My family gave me two forenames, Heather and Elizabeth- when I was about 13 my parents asked me which I prefered. I suppose it's kind of the same- showing you're 'adult' and therefore allowed to chose what you'd like people to call you.