Is it ‘Nelson Piquet Jr.’ or ‘Nelsinho Piquet’?
Archive: names
When Nicol Stephen emerged as a front-runner to become the Scottish Lib Dem leader after Jim Wallace stood down, I joked (two years ago, blimey!) that it might raise awareness of how to spell my name, Stephen. Common variations include: Steven, Stephens, Stevens, Stephenson and Stevenson. None of which, you might notice, are correct.
Worse still, because my first name is Duncan, I get plenty of people who think my name is Stephen Duncan. Might as well just call me Buttsecks and be done with it.
Unfortunately, even if you are the leader of a major political party in Scotland, still many people can’t get your name right. *sigh*
Bobbie Johnson has found out why he is often asked questions at airports. But it seems as though Garry had better watch out aswell. Oo-er.
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Despite having been working at Woolworths for almost a month now, I still haven’t been given my own name. Unlike some shops where nametags are essentially made out of a bit of paper put inside a plastic case, Woolworths seem to have to specially engrave one in a top-secret time-consuming procedure.
So while we wait for my proper nametag to arrive, I have been told to use another male nametag from the drawer. Of course, I was to be given a male nametag because I am obviously not female. But the fact that I am obviously not Asian didn’t seem to put them off when they decided to make me Engin.
I had never heard the name before I worked at Woolworths, but inside Woolies it is a name I’ve heard a lot. Infact, on my first day on the tills (before I even had Engin as a name badge), I was asked, “Does Engin still work here?” At first I thought it sounded like it might be a Welsh name, but apparently the real Engin is Asian.
At first I found the whole thing quite funny, kind of poking fun at the whole need for sales assistants to wear name badges. But I have had to endure three or four weeks of the same old cracks. For instance: “Engin’s looking awfy peely-wally today.” Amusing the first time, boring the fifth time.
Of course, I also get loads of customers asking me how I say my name. I have to explain the whole situation, that my name is actually Duncan, I’m new here, I still haven’t got my nametag yet, this is somebody else’s nametag, but it’s pronounced /’É›n.ɡɪn/.
This explanation doesn’t please everyone. Yesterday I had a group of boys who looked like they might be troublemakers but turned out just to be playfully cheeky. “What’s your name?” Once I had given my explanation the boy replied, “Your name’s engine, isn’t it?” About an hour later they came back, shouting, “Alright, engine?” on their way past me.
I should just say that my name is pronounced like ‘Duncan’, but I just use a really avant-garde spelling.
There is one plus point to it all though. If I get the mystery shopper and I mess it up by failing to ask him twenty questions about what he hasn’t bought, Engin gets the blame.
Update: A clue to the origin of the name? meeshy meesh left a comment on Flickr:
Means “vast” in Turkish.
I saw this Surname Profiler on BBC News yesterday, but it was down then — Ryan Morrison reminded me about it today.
I am amazed to find out that my surname, Stephen, exists only in Scotland! No wonder people often get my name wrong (doesn’t explain why Scots get it wrong though). It is especially concentrated in the north-east.
Add a little ‘s’ to the end of my name — as many people do — and all of a sudden we are all from South Wales, Cornwall and the south in general! Stephenson, meanwhile, is from the north east of England. So neither is a bastardisation of the others, because they all come from completely different places.
Potentially more interesting is my mother’s maiden name, Skirving. She is always telling me about how it’s apparently a Norwegian name. The map offers no clues on this front though. My mother says they were originally based in Haddington, and the map indeed tallys with this. The heaviest concentration is in the Lothians and Fife, with some more in Strathclyde — my mother was born in Glasgow. Skirvings migrate more as well; there are signs of life in England! However, a small number of Skirvings can make a huge difference on the map — there are only 216 of them (if it wasn’t for my granddad there would actually be fewer Skirvings today than in 1881 despite population growth).
Other names from my family — Besford and Deighton are both from the east (particularly north-east) of England; Logan is of course heavily concentrated in Scotland, particularly the south and west.
Just for fun, Duncan, although it isn’t my surname, also has its roots in north-east Scotland.
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