by Answers to today’s questions at thefridayfive@DW!
1) Do you like your birth-name? Why?
Okay, so. I was adopted when I was 1 month old and this was the plan since months before. I don’t think I had a recorded first name until my adoptive parents gave me one, but my original/birth-surname was “baby girl” + my biological family’s surname in the documents. It’s on okay surname, short and pretty common but not too common. My real name, both first and surname, were recorded when I was 5 months old when the final official papers were signed.
So, I consider my real birth-name the names my adoptive Mom and Dad gave me, and both the first name and the surname are fine in and of themselves. But they are both quite rare and if put on google as a term, I’m the only who pops up.
My first name is fine. I don’t love, but it’s fine.
It’s is a name that can be written with either 1 “i” letter or two “i” letters (Pia, Piia but pronounced the same way) and that has always been a problem and still continues to this day! Everyone assumes my name is the version written with one “i” but my name actually written with two! In school, it was made more confusing that all through mandatory school (so 9 years), there was a girl in my class with my same name but hers was written with one “i” while mine was with 2. And to make it all even more confusing, there was an another girl whose name was “Mia” (can also be written either Mia or Miia but also pronounced the same) with one “i” and that further confused the each poor new teacher when they would miss-hear her name starting with “P” or our names starting with “M” and would always try to guess wrong how many “i”s our names! Mom and Dad have always been perplexed by this one or two “i” problem – it never occurred to them there are people with one “i” because that’s more like foreign version of the name and in the mid-70s there were practically no foreign born living in Finland except for a small Swedish descending population (that had lived in the country for like 100 years usually already or more). To them, the Finnish version was a given!
As for my surname, it’s a long and rare one but I like it. It’s cool. I always run out of space on the signing line whenever I have sign any paper because it’s so long. And because it’s rare, if you google it, everyone who comes up, is likely related to each other in some way even if we’ve never met each other.
2) If you could change your name to anything else, what would it be?
I could change it if I wanted to; it is possible under the law. I haven’t, because I don’t care enough and I could not choose a new name when I thought about it seriously in my mid-20s. No other name felt like me, really.
3) What names would you consider giving your children?
I’ve never wanted children, so I have never considered possible names for them.
4) If you had a band, what would you name it, and why?
Donno, don’t care.
5) Is there a name that you completely hate? Why?
Hate is a really strong word, but I used to dislike the name Philip with one “l” a lot. Phillip with two “l”s was okay though!
