Can't tell you how many times I got stopped because they didn't believe my last name was "Whiteman". Pronounced just as I look. You can guess my nicknames. lol
I like the family feud and Catch-22 name skits as a good example of problematic names: “What’s your name son?” “Obu Obu Obu.” “😅 Did your dad name you that?” “Yes sir. He’s in the crowd right now.” “Dad, What’s your name?” “OBU.” “Who’s Major Major?” “I’m Major Major.” “Get in the car Major we’re late.” “Respectfully Sir, I’m a sergeant. My dad was a practical joker and named me first name Major, middle name Major, last name Major.” “God dammit he’s on the meetings for the next 90 days. We can’t have a sergeant showing up to these things. Major Major, step forward. Congratulations, you’re a major now. Now get in the fucking jeep.” Major Major Major Major
The people I really feel bad for are the folks from foreign militaries who come to the U.S. to train, spending however many years learning English and expecting names like Smith or Johnson, and then they meet American soldiers named shit like Cacciatore, Menendez, or Nguyen.
Fort Jackson at reception in the uniform area has a wall of funny last names. I can't for the life of me remember any specifics but they were hilarious.
One reference is to Asiana flight 214 accident when the news messed up the names of the pilots and flight engineer. Wang pronounced Wong “Captain: Sum Ting Wong”
I always get a kick out of the fact that hyphenated names aren’t a thing, the whole name just gets smooshed together on the nameplate and looks like a clusterfuck of letters 💀💀💀
When I was in navy boot camp they stuffed my 10 letter lastname along with my moms 6 letter last name because I apparently haven't been using my legal lastname
Ooh I had a guy I'm my BMT flight who's name was "Shortman" which was ironic because he was the tallest guy in my flight 😂 he got ribbed on a bunch for it and once inadvertently interrupted an exersize because the OPFORs thought it was so funny 😂😂😂
Truth. We had a private last named of Jesus (Hey-zoos). The drills just called him Jesus (Jee-sus), as in the Christian dude. It was always a riot. "Jesus, get over here."
A soldier with Romanian heritage whose last name is "Daca" (which literally translates to "If") which is pronounced the same way as the slang word "dakka" , meaning "firepower". Don't give that soldier a machine gun, or they'll get the nickname "Gatling" 😂
I just finished in-processing at my new unit (super long in processing) and the in-processing workers would never get last name pronunciation right, even when they promise they would get it right 😂
