If you could have a name like Vasilis Fthenakis, would you?

[NNadir]

I'm reading a paper I picked up some years ago by an author named Vasilis Fthenakis, at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

I have one of those ridiculously common names; my wife has a name that many people find difficult to pronounce, and so we gave her name to my sons because I've always been annoyed at having such a common name.

But even she, and my sons, can't match Fthenakis.

Maybe it's a pain in the ass to always have to spell your name or have people mangle the spelling your name, but I'm always thrilled when someone doesn't know how to spell my name.

(I complemented my son's high school principal for being the only official person in the school in the 15 years I had kids in the district, to being the only person who correctly pronounced his name, something she did at an awards ceremony.)

What's the verdict on "Fthenakis?" Too beautiful for words, or a pain in the ass?

[Mme. Defarge]

1. Yes,

if it would make me a better cook.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. Virgil Covfefe?

now there's a name!

[Clash City Rocker]

3. It sounds just like it's spelled!

[RussellCattle]

4. I think that it's a wonderful name, whether the "F" is silent or not. Society pushes us....

....toward more homogeneity and a unique name is a small victory in the fight against that. My opinion.

[LeftInTX]

5. My grandfather's name was weirder

Nerses was his first name. I won't say our last name.
We're Armenian.

And my parents gave my brother the middle name Nerses....boy oh boy, did he get teased...I guess they could have given him the first name Nerses, but thank goodness, they didn't.

[WestLosAngelesGal]

6. No one else in America has my name...

...and I love it.

[Ron Obvious]

7. I can only imagine what poetically-inclined schoolchildren would make of it.

I'm happy enough with my own name.