Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 75 total)
  • WTF – using a different name
  • sugdenr
    Free Member

    I just found out that at least 3 more senior people at work use a completely different first name than their given names.

    In each case they apparently dont like their given names so just picked one they liked and use that….so on formal stuff the have to put John Paul George (known as ‘Ringo’) Smith.

    That is just vanity gone mad isn’t it?

    camo16
    Free Member

    Well, I’m not overly fond of my given name.

    When I used to temp, I’d ask people to call me ‘Mike’ – which is an easy name to remember, although I kept forgetting it. 😳 Reason being, my real name is weird and Welsh.

    In my ideal world, I’d be called Earl.

    piedidiformaggio
    Free Member

    There was a guy in one of our offices with the surname ‘Daniels’ and insisted on being called ‘Jack’, even though it wasn’t his name.

    Hilarious 🙄

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    ericemel
    Free Member

    LOL but there is a lot of stigmas around names – how many directors do you know called kevin?

    Cougar
    Full Member

    That’s nothing. I’ve just found out that almost all of the married women in our office use a completely different surname from the one they were born with. Madness!!

    khani
    Free Member

    On a Sunday, I’m called Susan…

    piedidiformaggio
    Free Member

    I’ve just found out that almost all of the married women in our office use a completely different surname from the one they were born with.

    Devious things, them women. No wonder I can’t understand them 😉

    Klunk
    Free Member

    I’ve just had RAC spam on my fictitious email name I only use for this place 🙂 😕

    bwaarp
    Free Member

    Well, I did know a girl called Dorothy who went by the name Megan as that name is so hilariously bad. I don’t blame her.

    surroundedbyhills
    Free Member

    I employed a guy called Wilf once, turns out as new recruit in the army there were 2 Pauls’ in his billet since he was Paul #2 the drill sergeant named him Wilf – 20 years later even his wife called him Wilf!

    what’s in a name The Big Yin and the Name song – keep the sound down at work! stay with it it builds up.

    Pigface
    Free Member

    I have worked with a bloke who insisted that everyone called him JJ, amazingly everyone did. Still don’t know what his real name is.

    spacemonkey
    Full Member

    I went on a darts beano with my pub team to Eastbourne about 10 yrs ago. This included one of our (long time) mates called Paul. When we checked in at the hotel he signed himself in as Adrian. The rest of us looked at each in confusion before asking what he was doing. He admitted Adrian was his real name but he preferred being called Paul. Odd.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    A new guy started at our school about the time when those British Gas privatisation adverts were on telly – “If you see Sid, tell ‘im”. He told people his name was Sid and it stuck with kids and teachers. When they’d tell him off (frequently) they’d use his full name Sidney.. it was in fact Steven.

    I recently found out that several of my cousins use their middle names instead of their actual first names. My Dad does this, but I had no idea how widespread it was. Everything I thought I knew turns out to be a lie!

    footflaps
    Full Member

    No idea why my parents christened me ‘Footflaps’. I go by the name of ‘Ben’ when I’m not in here….

    binners
    Full Member

    When any bloke start work at our place, you get ‘given’ a name. Nobody gets referred to by their proper first name. I have absolutely no ****ing idea what the criteria are for the name you are given. I think its just random. but I get called Steve. My name is not Steve, or anything remotely like it.

    Its like Trigger on only Fools and Horses always referring to Rodney as Dave. This has been going on for so long that none of us think this is unusual, and we just answer to our work ‘names’

    All my mates just call me Binners, and have done since I was at school

    julianwilson
    Free Member

    Very common for people to go by their middle name. Dunno about just choosing one though! Perhaps this week I shall be known as Mordecai.

    It is also very common in the Navy to be given a completely diferent forname, and consequently for people who have left the Navy and are so used to their ‘given’ name. If your surname is Armstrong, expect to be called Louie whatever your first name really is. An old ex naval colleague named Tug Wilson told me there are dozens more ‘mandatory name change’ examples. iirc the same is true for some fire brigades.

    I also know a lady at work whose ‘given name’ is a contraction of her maiden (sur)name, and despite occupying a rather senior position in our organisation, no one knows who it is when an email comes in with her proper name on it.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    I recently worked with an oriental chap (Chinese I think) whose family name was Li. As is common he’d chosen a Western name for simplicity – Christopher. Took me a couple of days to get it 🙂

    allthepies
    Free Member

    Very common for non-indigenous natives, especially from India.

    MrSparkle
    Full Member

    … and Popes.

    willard
    Full Member

    I spent a very happy six months working in Bristol and living in a shared house with three other blokes. I seem to remember that two of them were called Paul, so they just decided that everyone in the house should be called Ted instead to cut down on confusion. Strangely, it worked. Even Aussie Ted managed to cope, which must have beed tough.

    Sidney
    Free Member

    My old man is full of laughs.

    When we were a lot younger he convinced my older brother that his name was Sidney Mincin (real name Steve) and following on from that several years later that my name was Sidney Sideboard (Simon in real life). This was purely for my dads own amusement. Comes in handy when trying to think of a forum name………

    TuckerUK
    Free Member

    Very common for people to go by their middle name.

    Middle name? You only have two forenames? Oh, how quaint!

    binners
    Full Member

    Isn’t the number of forenames you have inversely proportional to the breadth of the gene pool that led to your existence? 😉

    mrsflash
    Free Member

    My grandmother, mum and brother all used their middle names instead of their first names. Mum and grandmother because they didn’t like their first names, brother because he was named William as all the first sons in my dad’s family were for about 200 years, but my parents didn’t want to actually use it so used his middle name instead.

    thegreatape
    Free Member

    I caused offence a few years ago when my mother-in-law informed of the birth of my wife’s brother’s son.

    ‘They’ve had a boy and he’s called JJ’

    ‘Oh very nice, what’s JJ short for then?’

    ‘That’s what I thought, but apparently it’s not short for anything. His name is JJ’

    Turns out it’s actually Jay-Jay which is after a football player (Association Football, obviously).

    psling
    Free Member

    Can occasionally cause problems.

    A few years ago a group of us booked a trip to Italy, flying over with bikes. One guy organised the trip, booked the flights, etc.. Another member of the party, known to all of us for many years by his first name (which was also the name he was called by his wife and in his business) was booked onto the flight in that name. Of course, when we check in for the flight we find out that he has a totally different first name! He wasn’t allowed to board on that ticket and had to book and pay for a new ticket. Luckily, they allowed him on the same flight.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    I once had a phone call from “Bruce”, took me a couple of minutes to realise it was someone I’d know for about 10 years, he’d just started at uni and decided he wanted a new name.

    Only recenly discovered that my Grandmother doesn’t use her real name!

    miketually
    Free Member

    My brother goes by a contraction of his middle name, because my mam thought the names sounded odd the other way round.

    I know a few people who go by their surname, or a shortening of it, to the point that their parents refer to them by that name: Vinnie is actually called David, and Jollie is actually Neil.

    A friend at uni was called Sid by everybody, because when he first wrote his name as a kid it looked more like Sid than Simon.

    I know someone else who got a passport in a name different to the one on his birth certificate, based on a note from his mum saying that was the name he used.

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Related: idly watched “One Born Every Minute” last night and raised an eyebrow that one young mum (Bianca) had chosen to name her baby “Kale” 😕

    Really? You’re naming your precious first born child after a cabbage?

    I suspect he’ll be going by a different name later in life 😀

    Northwind
    Full Member

    Think it’s reasonably common in Scotland, lots of people whose first name is their dad’s name so they always use the middle.

    One of my old motorbike group went by a completely different name- first and last. Only found out because he left his wallet in a bunkhouse one time, I checked it for ID and here was driving licence etc with his pic but different details. Obviously a spai.

    nealglover
    Free Member

    ‘That’s what I thought, but apparently it’s not short for anything. His name is JJ’
    Turns out it’s actually Jay-Jay which is after a football player (Association Football, obviously).

    Mmmmm, I’m not sure 😉

    Pieface
    Full Member

    I use my middle name all the time. My parents always used it and its stuck. I’m never sure where I stand from a legal perspective or if it even matters. Its my ‘known as’ name, but it is actually my official name (but not)…

    GrahamS
    Full Member

    Obviously a spai.

    A spai, m’seur?

    Drac
    Full Member

    It’s very common lots of people like to known by a different name see it regular at work. I go by my middle name always have use to think it was odd myself but know others who do the same.

    ell_tell
    Free Member

    We had a chap in work called John E. Thomas who insisted on being called JET. Signed off e-mails using it and everything.

    Sort of ruined my childhood memories of Gladiators though 🙁

    Gunz
    Free Member

    Two young lads on my first ship were named thus;

    Surname, Dring. Nickname, Pucker.
    Surname, Lloyd. Nickname, Mongo.

    I don’t know half of the first names of people at work.

    binners
    Full Member

    We had a chap in work called John E. Thomas who insisted on being called JET.

    Surely to christ if you request that people call you something, especially something as cockish as that, then that just ensures that no-one ever calls you that, ever? And instead simply refer to you as bell end, or ladyboy, or nob jockey, from that day forward

    hurbum
    Free Member

    Where I work a lot of people are either Navy or Ex-Navy. Barely any of them use their real name. They have a stock nickname dependant on surname/nationality/build.

    http://www.godfreydykes.info/NICK%20NAMES%20IN%20THE%20ROYAL%20NAVY%20-%20and%20elsewhere!.htm

    CharlieMungus
    Free Member

    We had a chap in work called John E. Thomas who insisted on being called JET.
    Surely to christ if you request that people call you something, especially something as cockish as that, then that just ensures that no-one ever calls you that, ever? And instead simply refer to you as bell end, or ladyboy, or nob jockey, from that day forward

    Perhaps, but not as cockish as John Thomas, which may have been what he was trying to avoid.

    ciron
    Free Member

    My mothers maiden name is Emanuel. It was only recently she discovered that when her fathers oldest brother began work at the pit, they mistakingly registered him as Emanuel rather than E. Manuel.

    When the subsequent brothers started at the pit, including my Grandfather, they continued to be recorded as Emanuels, so our family name changed.

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