> > So, my split personality finally manifested itself as my login name goes to RinkForum. How's that for a name coincidence! In Denmark, there is a List Of Allowed Names, which perhaps degrades the novelty of having five Michaels in my high school class. There was a great rave a couple of years ago when a couple wanted to call their newborn Cristophpher. That would simply not do.
> >
> > jul"suggests Denmark for Dave's asteroid attack"ian
>
> Ooh, I read about the "Christophpher" debacle a while back. That was interesting, to say the least...
>
> And that brings up an interesting topic-- people who give their children otherwise normal names, but spell them in a way that isn't so ordinary. I mean, we've got plenty of "Britney"s and "Ashleigh"s cropping up; nobody's content to just spell it Brittany or Ashley anymore. I even know a Marylen and a Jennipher who were in my school's symphonic band.
>
> Now as much as I like the individualistic spirit of the parents who give their children such names, it's really more of a hassle than it may at first seem. Often it's impossible to just take a wild guess at the spelling of someone's name, and instead we have to resort to asking a series of ridiculous-sounding questions regarding exactly how it's spelled. If we do just take the most obvious guess at the spelling, it's bound to be wrong, and the person in question may become rather annoyed at having their name misspelled, especially when it's done repeatedly. That's not a bad thing for a name that already has several well-established variations ("Catherine", for instance), but seriously-- there should be some sort of limit to it.
>
> -- codeman"oh yeah, and I've even seen a Jhon or two"38


You know what's funny? I have never ever in my life ever met *anybody* who spells his name "Aurthur", "Aurther", "Arthor", "Authur", or "Author". (Well, people *call* themselves the last one, but it's not a name.) I am not aware of any context in which those are acceptable respellings of "Arthur". (Okay, *once* in a name book I saw "Aurthur". I still think it looks stupid, and I can't imagine a parent actually naming their kid that for any reason other than being illiterate. It doesn't have the pizzazz of replacing an "f" with "ph", it doesn't have the fanciness of replacing "y" with "eigh"; it looks like an American speaker making a ham-handed attempt to represent a British accent in writing.)

Yet everywhere I go, there's at least one person who thinks my name needs at least one more "u" in it or thinks that my parents named me after a future career. In my high school yearbook I swear the name "Aurthur" occurs more often than the actual "Arthur".

We can't even use the "uneducated high school student" excuse; on the professionally-produced videotape of a musical program I was involved in last year, on the credits I saw my name listed "Aurthur Chu". They didn't have any problems spelling "Boyajian" or "Grasmeyer" or "Amperosa", they didn't mix up any of the Kristens, Kristins, Christines or Christianas, they didn't try to "correctly spell" Pieter Goedhart's name... And yet they can't spell "Arthur Chu". And this is a fairly big company in our area that does this for our school every year. The primary *purpose* of making this video is so we can see our names in the credits. And I'm not aware that I have *ever* suggested to anybody that my name has two "u"s in it. Yes, I know I have awful handwriting; Arther, Arthor, even Authur I can understand, but *how* do they get that extra "u" in there?

What the heck gives?

A"u"rthur