"Say my name, say my name" --Destiny's Child

So, yeah, Sean Combs has changed his name again. This time for just one week. Do I care? Aside from the general absurdity of changing your name for one week, mmmnotsomuch.

On a more personal note, I know people that have changed their names for various reasons. Some of them legal even.


I have a distant relative who, in his 50s, decided that he no longer wanted to be known by his given name: Sol. He changed his name to David because he said it was a name people trusted. Forget that multiple heads already swiveled when the name David was called in our family. Most everyone made the effort to call him David. But I know one relative, let's call him Joe, who insisted on continuing to call this guy Sol or Sol-David.


I have another distant relative who changed her name in her twenties from something very ordinary to something truly strange sounding. I won't tell you what because even though there's probably still three or four Sols in the world, I'm pretty sure there's only one of these. Suffice to say it went from something like "Sue" to something like "Elbownee" because it translated to "unique form" in Urdu. Joe insists that this woman is Sue and will always be Sue no matter what she wants to be called.

Now, if someone wants to change their name to Butthead, maybe I have a problem with it. But these changes? I can honor. Am I wrong? Is Joe wrong?

Which leads us to the question du jour: If someone asks you to call them something else besides what you've always known them as, what do you do?

"Mary Joleisa, Always the same, That's not my name" --The Ting Tings

The question du jour: When someone gets your name wrong, do you correct them? And, if so, how many times are you willing to do this? At what point is knee-capping acceptable?

Poor Spelling is the Means

Have you noticed that there are websites that have alMOST the same address as very common websites. So say you want www.blogger.com but you fail to spell it correctly or you suffer from "fat fingers" and what you get is www.bloggear.com... is it just a coincidence that this address is so close to a popular address? Maybe, but I think not. Here's my conspiracy theory du jour: there are people that take advantage of misspellings and confusion (was that .com or .net??) to redirect web flow to their own nefarious purposes. I think they pick names that are one letter off or exactly the same except for the extension and take advantage of the halo effect of web popularity.

Well, that's what I think. But, then, I'm not a very trusting individual.