Moments of Permanence - We should be clear on certain things: Names, identity, and why certain people need to shut up hard

From: elspethdixon Date: June 15th, 2009 12:49 pm (UTC) (Link)

one of the areas where conformity is appropriate is how your new countrymen say your name, since that's not something the rest of us can just ignore, unlike what church you go to or what you eat for lunch

I love the implication that people's religion and food choices are some kind of terrible imposition on the rest of us that we're all long-sufferingly 'ignoring.' But oh, when someone's name is hard to pronounce, that's going too far!

The painful thing is, this isn't a unique form of stupidity. A congresswoman from Texas caused a minor scandal a while ago by suggesting that Asian immigrants adopt 'legal' names that are Anglicanized and not too Chinese/Japanese/Vietnamese-sounding so that people wouldn't find their names confusing when they went to vote/renew their drivers license/etc.

(Reply) (Thread)

From: sami Date: June 15th, 2009 02:37 pm (UTC) (Link)

*twitch*

I admit to having occasionally been frustrated by a couple of Asian names, but that was just when I worked at Directory Assistance and encountered the horrors of 1) long streets and 2) immigrant congregation. There's one street - I think it's in Sydney - that has, literally, hundreds of people named Nguyen living on it.

Which leads to conversations like this:

Customer: Nguyen.
Me: At what address please?
Them: [Street, suburb]
Me: ... There are... too many listings, at that street address... Do you have their initials?
Them: [Initials]
Me: ...
Me: I have about thirty with that initial on that street. Do you have the house number?

EXCEPT SOME OF THEM APPEAR TO LIVE AT A BLOCK OF FLATS, BECAUSE THERE ARE TEN AT THE SAME STREET NUMBER. Around then the customer gave up.

This is the only problem I can see, and since there are no guarantees those people aren't all related (maybe all the aunts and uncles and cousins and so on all moved to the same street on purpose) they might all take the same name anyway.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

From: elspethdixon Date: June 15th, 2009 03:44 pm (UTC) (Link)

I have a similar problem at my office, with multiple instances of the same name. There's a Joe Smith* Jr and a Joe Smith III.

Person on phone: I'd like to speak to Joe.
Me: Which Joe.
Them: Joe Smith.
Me: There are two Joe Smiths. Do you want the older one or the younger one?
Them: Joe Smith, Jr.
Me: Transfers them to Joe Smith Jr.
*two minutes later*
Them: *calls back* That wasn't the Joe I wanted. I wanted the younger one.
Me: The younger one is Joe Smith III *transfers*

It's like "Who's on First" via telephone.


*not actually his name

(Reply) (Parent)

From: sqbr Date: June 16th, 2009 01:04 am (UTC) (Link)

We had the same problem with people's details getting mixed up. I don't know if you encountered this, but it is traditional for ALL Vietnamese girls to have the first name "Thi". I'm assuming the Vietnamese bureaucracy has some way of dealing with this, but all we had was a bunch of dodgy hacks.

But it's like the fact that putting in disabled access is a genuine inconvenience: the question is, do you start from the assumption that it's your organisation's job to accommodate and cater to the huge variety of people who make up the population, or do you start from the assumption that everyone is "normal" and then treat anyone who differs from that as an inconvenient exception? (I have this rant about the unstated and restrictive assumptions associated with records, but it's a particular combination of controversial-with-my-nominal-employer and niche interest that makes me cautious about posting it :))

Personally, if I got to change the names of one group who made my job more difficult, it would be twins with similar names :D And then the Smiths. (Disclaimer: obviously I wouldn't actually do this, see topic of post)

(Reply) (Parent)

From: lady_ganesh Date: June 16th, 2009 01:35 am (UTC) (Link)

I love the implication that people's religion and food choices are some kind of terrible imposition on the rest of us that we're all long-sufferingly 'ignoring.' But oh, when someone's name is hard to pronounce, that's going too far!

NAIL. ON. HEAD.

(Reply) (Parent)