My mother (who died in May) did not remember what she would have named me if I'd been AFAB. I did ask. I really, really wish she'd been able to tell me.
Awwww. :(
And because I was baptized Orthodox I had to be baptized under a Biblical or church name (which neither of my given names are), so they picked Κλημης for that
Right, everyone in my sweetie's mother's family has at least two names, the one the Anglophones could cope with, and their Greek names.
At the first Christmas dinner I spent with them, I asked tn3270's mother if her name – which was only two syllables and didn't sound at all Greek to me – was short for something, and she said yes it was, and told me her full name (four syllables). Which blew away tn3270, who had no idea his mother had any more name than that. She had literally only ever used her two-syllable, easy-for-Americans name, on all official paperwork since registering for kindergarden. But apparently it's not what is on her birth certificate.
Amusingly, Aunt C has a perfectly Greek – even Classical – name she was known by as her American name. She just had an even Greeker name that I first heard about in the Greek parts of her funeral service.
Anyways, so, technically, you don't have a naming problem.
(It does kind of liberate me a bit, because I can pick whatever difficult name appeals to me, but tell people, "you can call me [easyname]". It does mean I have to like both though, so yeah, two problems.)
I am reminded of my cousin Lia, whom I only ever heard called Lia until I went to Cyprus and misspelled her name "Lea" and was corrected with the explanation, "It's short for Evangelia." It wasn't a surprise to anyone else though, as when I saw her house there was a sign on the fence with her full name on it, advertising that she's an architect. (This is my cousin the Timelord. I visited three of the four houses she designed (she usually does parks), and each one was bigger on the inside, two of them quite dramatically so. I figured out some of the tricks she'd used -- leading to a "You spotted that?! Only other architects ever catch that!" moment -- but I couldn't account for most of it. She was amused when I announced that I'd figured out her secret, that she's a Timelord.)
Come to think of it, I also never heard aunt Vaso's whole name -- Vasiliki -- until I started working on the family tree, but apparently that is a pretty standard shortening. But I don't think either relative's short name was chosen to be easier for Anglophones (though Vaso lives in England, so maybe she would have done so if she weren't already called by an easy short version of her name).
The idea of a Greek name and an even Greeker name delights me.
(no subject)
Awwww. :(
And because I was baptized Orthodox I had to be baptized under a Biblical or church name (which neither of my given names are), so they picked Κλημης for that
Right, everyone in my sweetie's mother's family has at least two names, the one the Anglophones could cope with, and their Greek names.
At the first Christmas dinner I spent with them, I asked
Amusingly, Aunt C has a perfectly Greek – even Classical – name she was known by as her American name. She just had an even Greeker name that I first heard about in the Greek parts of her funeral service.
Anyways, so, technically, you don't have a naming problem.
You have two naming problems.
HTH. :) :) :)
(no subject)
(It does kind of liberate me a bit, because I can pick whatever difficult name appeals to me, but tell people, "you can call me [easyname]". It does mean I have to like both though, so yeah, two problems.)
I am reminded of my cousin Lia, whom I only ever heard called Lia until I went to Cyprus and misspelled her name "Lea" and was corrected with the explanation, "It's short for Evangelia." It wasn't a surprise to anyone else though, as when I saw her house there was a sign on the fence with her full name on it, advertising that she's an architect. (This is my cousin the Timelord. I visited three of the four houses she designed (she usually does parks), and each one was bigger on the inside, two of them quite dramatically so. I figured out some of the tricks she'd used -- leading to a "You spotted that?! Only other architects ever catch that!" moment -- but I couldn't account for most of it. She was amused when I announced that I'd figured out her secret, that she's a Timelord.)
Come to think of it, I also never heard aunt Vaso's whole name -- Vasiliki -- until I started working on the family tree, but apparently that is a pretty standard shortening. But I don't think either relative's short name was chosen to be easier for Anglophones (though Vaso lives in England, so maybe she would have done so if she weren't already called by an easy short version of her name).
The idea of a Greek name and an even Greeker name delights me.