Je m'appelle/mein Name ist/mijn naam is/my name is Graham Barry Edwards. Apologies but I don't know the Swedish translation.
A few days ago Scriptor Senex/CJ/John/Clive/ blogged about Who Am I? He pointed out that I had my name problems too. Yet another thing in common between two brothers. I thought about enlightening the world (or my tiny part of it) as to my names but decided not to. Until this morning. I was replying to an email when I noticed that the previous email I'd sent was signed off 'Graham'. That's be OK for most of my emails 'cos that's my name. But....
Like CJ I don't use the name that Mum and Dad called me which was Barry. Some of my older friends and people who know me through my wife or early days or The Pottery still call me that. However I've been called Graham as well since I worked in a hospital at the age of 16 whilst waiting for surgery. That is what most newcomers to my life know me as.
The odd thing is that, despite the huge mixing of those who know me through more than one source, I always know instinctively who calls me what. I suppose it's like the French with their Le and La. There are some sort of rules but you have to know by instinct or rote to get them all correct.
Anyway nowadays I'm known by Barry, Graham, GB, Geeb, G and VPE or Vieux Pet Ennuyeux. As I (and they) get older the number of people calling me Barry diminishes. CJ calls me GB as do quite a few other people. I like that. I've always like the use of initials as a name. A handful of close friends call me Geeb (which I also like muchly) but I think I use that in written form to only three people. Steve used to call me Barry, then Graham and now simply G. David (ADM) alias Marcel Du Marche has always called me Graham however as he was the person who, all those years ago, said that I was a boring old fart, when he started up his blog dialogues avec mon jardinier écossais I adpoted the pseudonym Vieux Pet Ennuyeux (French for Boring Old Fart) to comment. Marcel and VPE communicate frequently by email and Skype. David and Graham talk to each other!
Posts
A rose by any other name, GB...
ReplyDeleteI like Geeb though!
Geeb. ;^) It reminds me of "Jeeves," which reminds me of a butler's name...which definitely does not suit you...
ReplyDeletebut yet, it's an affectionate nickname.
I know that you've been blasting your memory lately, but the fact that you can remember when someone first called you Graham, at age 16, and relate it to us in detail, is pretty fantastic.
;^)
Thank you. But a rose, Lisa, not by any name unfortunately me thinks! Actually, Cynthia, I might make a reasonable butler. I'm quite good in a supporting role (says I modestly!).
ReplyDeleteNext name might be Geebs, then, to strenghten the Jeeves connection. I think I might adopt that next time I need support... ;)
ReplyDeleteSwedish language lesson:
'Jag heter' OR 'Mitt namn är'
In your case an additional useful phrase might be '...men jag kallas' (...but people call me...)
As I said on CJ's post... No one ever uses my middle name and if someone did just-out-of-the-blue, I would not think it was me they were addressing.
I have nothing against my middle name; I just never had anything against my first one either, so never saw any reason to change.
My identity never really started multiplying until I entered the internet. See old blogpost of mine
My dad had the unfortune of having his actual name registred as second or third with the authorities. I say second OR third because the first two were supposed to be a double name with a hyphen but sometimes they lose the hyphen. Anyway he was never called by his actual name by any authorities. Just recently, when frequent health and home care etc came into the picture, we found this to be so much of a problem that we made a radical move and got his official name order changed. So at the age of 78, he is now finally registered by the name he actually answers to...!
Monica Christina