vilakins | Name memes

Entry tags:

meme - me

Name memes

Because I am bored and not in the mood for writing, having just finished my finishathon story. Snurched from snowgrouse and pet_lunatic respectively, and slightly edited.

My name

What is your first name?
Nicola.

What are your nicknames if any?
Nico. (Never Nicky. DO NOT WANT.) I had others at school (Spitfire--after my favourite fighter plane, not my temper--and Rommel for my war-gaming) but they have faded away.

Are you named after anyone?
Nicola Marlow of the Antonia Forest books, and this pleases me greatly. My middle name is Ruth after my grandmother, and I like that too.

Would you name a child of yours after you?
Of course not! Why have two people which the same name in the house? Besides, I have no intention of having children.

If you were born a member of the opposite sex, what would your name be?
My mother said I was Stephen all through her pregnancy, but given that my brother was too, and was promptly renamed on sight because "he didn't look like a Stephen", I'm not sure I would have been either. Another name considered for me as a girl was Priscilla. I am relieved it was discarded.

If you could switch names with a friend who would it be?
I wouldn't. I'm quite attached to my name, the first ones anyway.

Are there any mispronunciations/typos that people often make with any of your names?
Oh yeah. I get Nicole all the time, even straight after I've introduced myself. I gave up when I lived in Germany and became Nicole. It's as if people don't hear a name they don't know and just aim for one they do, and that happens, less often, for my surname too. As for spelling, I almost always have to spell both names, and I still get stuff addressed to a mangled version.

Would you change your name if you became famous?
I'd change my surname, but before that. :-) It's a pain, and as with Nicola being changed to Nicole, people keep trying to make it a name they know. And I don't like that one.

The return of the Google name meme

Go to Google and type in your first name and the given phrase. Copy and paste the first sentence/phrase you get that makes sense (and isn't someone else's response to this meme).
(WTH, even Google asks me if I mean Nicole. No, I do not.)

Q: Type in "[your name] needs" in the Google search.
A: Nicola needs a hot chocolate. (OK, now I want one.)

Q: Type in "[your name] looks like" in Google search.
A: Nicola looks like a spy in a raincoat, wet brunette hair, dripping umbrella. (I love this, and it's very likely in Auckland's weather.)

Q: Type in "[your name] says" in Google search.
A. Call me Nicola, says sex-swap police officer (This is from the Yorkshire Evening Post. Go, my new fellow Nicola.)

Q: Type in "[your name] wants" in Google search.
A: Nicola wants an ice-cream maker for Christmas. (Bwahahaha, very appropriate after

kerravonsen's posts about hers!)

Q: Type in "[your name] does" in Google search.
A: Nicola does more than describe problems. (Yes! I ~~cause~~ solve them!)

Q: Type in "[your name] hates" in Google search.
A: Nicola hates anything domestic. (Sounds about right. She also hates being asked if she really meant "Nicole hates".)

Q: Type in "[your name] asks" in Google search.
A: Nicola asks 'Is everything OK?' (And suspects the answer is no.)

Q: Type in "[your name] goes" in Google search.
A: Nicola goes over to the Merricks' house to tend to her merlin, Sprog, whom she keeps in Patrick's hawkhouse. (JOY! It is my namesake, Nicola Marlow!)

Q: Type in "[your name] likes" in Google search.
A: Nicola likes biking. (I do, but I don't have a bike any more.)

Q: Type in "[your name] eats" in Google search.
A: Nicola eats a Big Mac hamburger in the Kreuzberg neighborhood of Berlin, Germany. (I wish! Well, the location, not the meal. I miss Germany.)

Q: Type in "[your name] wears" in Google search.
A: Nicola wears a very smart black and white shirt with a black waistcoat. (I like the sound of that, actually.)

Q: Type in "[your name] was arrested for" in Google Search.
A: Nicola was arrested for throwing two lesbians out of her pub after customers complained about them snogging. (!!! I'm glad they arrested that Nicola! I might add that there were only three hits for this one; we're a nice lot. And no, I don't want to know what all those Nicoles were arrested for, even though there appear to be 354 of them.)

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Heh. That google meme is fun. Better than the last version that went around, ages ago, I think.

I thought it was a fun one. It gets strange though when the first hits on some searches (for me anyway) are other people's responses to it. That may be because of having an unusual name though.

Yay, doc Betty!

I get Nicole all the time...

Oh, yes, so do I! It drives me completely insane, particularly if it's in an email or a forum post or the like, where my actual name with the actual correct spelling with the actual "A" at the end is Right. There. In. Front. Of. Them.

Ahem. On the bright side, it's taught me to copy/paste other people's handles (most of the time), in case I have a similar attack of not seeing what's right in front of me :)

I'm also very careful with names that have variant spellings like Sara[h] and Deborah/Debra, and especially the many forms of Catherine.

I was so used to being the only Nicola around ever, I was rather thrown by there being another one at one place I worked. Luckily she was a Nicky (and very nice) but it was still a minor crisis of identity. :-P I don't know how people called John manage. Are you usually the only one too?

I've actually found it (along with the usual variants) to be quite a common name. There were three of us in my second form year, and two more new ones in third form, although that is a bit extreme, but there's often at least one more in any given workplace. Our department secretary once confused me greatly by emailing me to ask about some sick leave I'd recently taken, when I'd done no such thing; turned out she had meant to send the message to a Nicole in our department. I suspect our names were adjacent in the email address drop-down.

The other department that shares our building has an Italian man with the same name, which I find quite amusing; mostly because I don't have to interact with him or his colleagues :) I seem to recall that much of Europe uses it as a masculine name.

I also get supernumerary H's (I am not an S-less Nicholas!) or K's.

Huh! I haven't come across many at all. A Niqi (sic) joined my last office just before I left. In Europe people did sometimes think I was a guy before they met me, and once in Rome when I exchanged cards with someone, I laughed at him being a Nicola too, but he was just puzzled to think that a female could have his name.

Once at school, a teacher was certain I was Nikolai, which was just bizarre. I used to get the rogue H too, and it annoyed me so much, a school friend picked up on it and pretty much called me Nich from then on right through uni. Which I didn't actually mind because it was funny.

I always assumed there were lots of them - I think there were a couple in my class at primary school - but I suppose it must be one of those fashions that comes and goes. I'd have imagined Nicole was the less common version (outside France), but probably Kidman gave it a big hike.

I'm wondering where the H in Nicholas does come from, because the root must be nike, as in "victory of the people". Oh, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas) says that "The customary English version of spelling 'Nicholas', using an 'h', is derived from one way of transliterating the diacritic on the 'o'."

I'd have always assumed that Nicola was the more common variant - it certainly was the only version I knew as I was growing up.

I always liked being victory of the people; it sounds so socialist. Interesting link! I see that the Nicoletta and Nicolina my sister sometimes calls me are actually Bulgarian versions, though they're also Italian which is what she goes for.

There was only one other Nicola at my high school, and I didn't know any at primary or uni. I've only met about five since, but it seems more popular in England than here. I wonder how many came from the Marlow books, like mine did.

FWIW you're the only one of you I know.

I've known a few of you and a few of me!

I usually assume "ch" is a transliteration of chi, but I see they've used a kappa there. Does nike have a kappa?

Yes, kappa not chi.

Never Nicky. DO NOT WANT.
Oh yes. Do you have people calling you Nicky as soon as you're introduced? It happens with my name. My name is "Kathryn", dagnabbit, if I wanted to be called "Kathy", then I would introduce myself as "Kathy". And, no, it is NOT friendly, it is patronizing. Grrr.

Oh hell, yes. And I feel exactly the same way. When I correct people and say that my name is Nicola, they just look at me strangely as if to say "I know that". I never shorten people's names unless they're introduced that way, or they ask me to. Grrr indeed.

Same here. My name is 'Gillian', not 'Gill', 'Jill' or 'Jilly'. Steve sometimes says Jill when we're roleplaying, but one of the other group members *is* a Gill, and it's not deliberate. Fortunately, none of my friends or acquaintances have ever deliberately tried to shorten Gillian to Jill.

People here do--how hard are three syllables, I ask--and look offended when I object. As

kerravonsen said, they seem to think it's friendly, but it's not; it's presumptuous.

It might be part of the culture here and in Australia, now I think of it. Shortened names are the norm, and only people with really unusual names like Greg's sister Elenka escape.

OTOH Greg's mother Laila hates her name and has been called Niki all her married life, taking it from her husband's surname.

I like what you write about your name.
And one of my friends here is also Nikola, written like this!

Female or male? And where does the emphasis go? Mine is on the first syllable: Nicola. :-)

She is a ...young lady, I was tempted to say a girl. The emphasis is also on the first syllable. And she prefers a nickname Nikky among friends. She is an English teacher at a local language school.

Just like me except for the spelling then! I only like being called Nicola or Nico though.

Oh, yes, that's my other "don't get me started..." issue. I've never met a Nicola who didn't pronounce it that way, so I can only assume everyone gets the second-syllable emphasis from all the Nicoles out there!

My sister sometimes calls me Nicola-polar-bear, but then she also calls me Nicoletta. :-)

This is a bit of a tangent, but the "new Nicola" makes me wonder something I've often wondered - how do cross-gendered people decide on a name? I've noted very very few of them pick a feminized (or masculinized) version of their existing name, or leave it the same, even if it's a gender-neutral name. I imagine that's because the old name is tied in with their former identity, and fells "wrong" or "ill-fitting". That makes sense. But what I've never figured out is... how do they pick a new one? A baby book? Name themselves after someone they admire? Ask their parents what they would have been named if they'd been [insert new gender here]. (Though I imagine that last one is highly unlikely, for the same reasons as above)

It's just one of those things that wanders through my brain on occasion, and probably sounds ridiculously ignorant to actual transgendered people.

I thought she might have picked Christine, but maybe most go for a name that has always appealed to them, and that's unlikely to be a version of their own one. I think you also have a good point about the old name being connected to their former identity.

The only transsexual I know went from being a Daniel to being Kate. She was already living as a woman by the time I knew her, so I've no idea why she chose Kate as a name though. As far as I know, it was just a name the liked, but there could have been a more personal reason.

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