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[–]GrilledTofuIdentifying as a block of tofu[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I will always be polite, but I refuse to accept that a screaming fit or accusations of bigotry are appropriate responses this sort of thing.

I just, can't brain how in 7 years the acceptable answer to everything is to scream like a toddler, complete with namecalling. And yet here we are!

I’ve got a surname that is difficult for English speakers to pronounce properly, and in fact my family being all English speakers as my brown grandparents didn’t pass on their home languages to my dad or his siblings, doesn’t quite get it right either (it’s pretty funny but a colleague who speaks the right language taught me to say it properly at the ripe old age of 35), so for all my life I have been called by a wide range of mispronunciations of my surname.

I live in South East Asia and I totally get the whole 'difficult to pronounce' stuff. Even worse for Chinese descent (like me) where even the Chinese can't pronounce my name right. I realised from a very young age that the only people who's gonna get my name right are those who spoke Mandarin since a wee baby. Since I didn't speak Mandarin from childhood, I myself can't even get my own name right half the time.

I did some diversity training and all of a sudden mispronunciation of a name was a racial “microaggression” and a warning sign of terrible systemic racism.

Brb dying from cringe. Uargh pain peko.

Tamil surnames

There's a belief that the longer the name, the longer you'll live. That resulted in mega long names.

[–]ClassroomPast6178 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

There's a belief that the longer the name, the longer you'll live. That resulted in mega long names.

Hah! That explains soo much! I had a lot of pupils from Tamil families at my last school and the names got crazy and impossible to remember. Thanks for finally explaining that to me!

[–]GrilledTofuIdentifying as a block of tofu[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

No problem! Oh I have another fun tidbit to share, this time it's more from the northern side of india (Tamil is the southmost).

I knew a teen whose full name is 27 generations long. Not 27 letters. Generations. Their registered name is limited to their father only (son/daughter of X) but their real names include the names of their grandfather and great-grandfather and great-great grandfather and beyond. They are written down and kept with the head priest for them to retrieve when they reach adulthood.

So the names of some Indians really can be Z son of Y X W V U T S R Q P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A. Replace every letter with actual names and that's it.