The Observation Deck

Ever notice that, except in very rare occasions, if at all, the wealthiest people on Forbe's list, all have names easily pronounced?

Entertainers use stage names often, since complicated names, such as mine, are not easy to pronounce, spell or remember, nor are "attractive".
Being an entertainer, and working in environments with those observations in mind, you'll understand the use of a stage name, or as the banks call it, a "fictitious name".
There still is a stigma with slavic names, and success, in the corporate environment. I've run into that in the past, in dealing in business, my whole life.

Part of it is ethnic beliefs . For example I am the first of at least 5 generations (maybe more since written records were not kept further back) to be a business owner, rather than have a "real job".

While people with a higher level of thinking may disagree, since they, themselves do not discriminate against such names, let's take a view of political or well known corporate figures.

How many people with names such as Kozlewkowchevic are Governors, or members of the House or Senate, let alone past presidents?

How many people in the public eye, that have achieved a large degree of wealth and fame have done it with names such as Dodzembronwsky, or Leztsischmsk in the United States?

How about a news anchor on TV?

I can hear it now. The Tonight Show, starring Yakob Zyndnobrwozis.

As Arsenio Hall used to say, it's just a "thing that makes you go hmmm".

*Note: all the Slavic names I used are real names.

Mark ALLAN (Crnolatas)
_______________________
"A society or group of people exist soley in it's ability to maintain an atmosphere of peace and civility. It's failure is directly relative to the degree of the lack of these conditions".

No one ever pronounces my last name correctly. It's fair to say more common names will be pronounced correctly more often, but I don't think easily pronounced names at the top of Forbes indicates much beyond them being common names in richer countries.

My name was even known where I grew up as my clan lived there since 1768, but people still got it wrong a great deal. The mishmash of cultures in North America means people have trouble with non-Anglo Saxon names, being the dominant culture for so long here.

Mark

What I notice about the Forbes list is does it rarely put the names of the real wealthy on the list. Oh they float Oprah and Bill Gates, but the mebers of the Bilderberg Group rarely makes the list.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm



.

but the mebers of the Bilderberg Group rarely makes the list.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

quoted for truth

if they made the list, oprah would look section 8

Well, if anyone finds a news anchor or an entertainer with a hit song, with a name similar to Kuzdnzdrkeski let me know.

btw, interesting point. On 2 different cable news programs last night, it was mentioned that the United States is divided now, more than ever in it's history, not by politics or race, but by income. (good for different thread).

So with that, I better get off this, as I'm running every anti-virus program I can think of, and if it can't be fixed, I might be AWOL unless I can find a new computer on a tree lawn on trash day.

Mark Allan (Crnolatas)
_______________________
"A society or group of people exist soley in it's ability to maintain an atmosphere of peace and civility. It's failure is directly relative to the degree of the lack of these conditions".

Leelee Sobieski
George Voinovich
Renee Zellwiger
John Belushi
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Patrick Swayze
Jerzy Kosinski (who changed his name from Jerzy Lewinkopf)
Pat Sajak
Peter Bogdanovich
Lolita Davidovic
Martina Navratilova
Anna Kornikova


all come to mind...

Point taken.

I have no idea how to go about pronouncing Kuzdnzdrkeski.

Kuz-dnuz-druh-keski would be my attempt, but that's probably mangling a perfectly good bunch of consonants...

We grew up on names like this in this area. Names like Kucinich, Voinovich or Stephanopolis don't really throw us. When you take names like this to another area of the country without some of the ethnic background we have in NE Ohio, your point is well taken, brows are furrowed & names mispronounced.

Some names you are kind of stuck with - e.g., your last name. However, it always amazes me what parents do with names. We had an interesting name file where I worked before. Names like Michael Michaels, or William Williams I didn't understand where the parents heads were and they aren't that uncommon.

But I must say I got rid of my ethnic name through marriage . As a kind of feminist at least at the time I got married, I thought I should keep my last name. But Don happily pointed out that if he had a last name like mine, he would gladly take my last name. So that settled it. Now I have a last name that most can pronounce even if they normally spell it wrong. It is a big step up from a name no one pronounced right or spelled right.

I remember a TV sit com that was on briefly about 10 years ago.

It was set in an emergency room in a Chicago hospital. The head doctor/star was Elliot Gould.

An injured man came in for treatment. The intake nurse asked him his name. Being Chicago he was of Polish heritage with a name with 33 consonants.

He stated his name. The nurse asked him how it was spelled.

He said "I don't know."

Stach Austin

aren't we glad there's no Oscar winning actors out there with my last name.
A lot of the stars these days use an Alias-
for example, Jamie Foxx's real name isn't really Jamie Foxx. It's Eric Bishop, and that's not hard to pronounce but Foxx is certainly more marketable than Bishop.

He used Jamie Foxx as an Alias in the first try-out he had for a play or movie and it stuck with him since.

"Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other."

I chuckled when Lynn Farris wrote that she lost her ethnic name when she married.

Having been born with a last name of "Hengesbaugh," I was convinced that if I ever married I would gain a simple new last name. Of course, I had to meet and fall in love with a man with the last name, "Schrimpf."
(I swear these are true names!)

Family and friends jokingly suggested that I just hyphenate the two as my new last name. (Ha, ha, very funny).

All joking aside, I'm very proud of our German heritage. And hey -- nothing breaks the ice better at a social event than the reaction I get when I tell someone for the first time my maiden and married names!

I met a Mike Zbrcdnchi. He legally changed it Branch. He also said it was ok here, in the greater Cleveland area, but when he was transferred to Atlanta, his name was, for him, a drawback in the business world, therefore the name change.
I think the spell checker just had a buffer overun
Mark Why am I up at 5:32am Allan (Crnolatas)
"A society or group of people exist soley in it's ability to maintain an atmosphere of peace and civility. It's failure is directly relative to the degree of the lack of these conditions".