Alex was most popular in 2009!
Yes that's right, it seems that the majority of boys born here in South Tyrol last year were named after me! I'm honored and flattered. When I was in shorts and knee socks at my first school, and later at my secondary (but not in shorts), I was the only one in the world to be lucky enough, or as I thought at the time, unlucky enough to have this name. I just wanted to be Stephen, David, Andrew, Mark or some other boring, normal name that all the rest of the boys had. Standing out from the crowd was not what I wanted, as that was more ammo for the Stephen, David, Andrew and Mark brigade... no it isn't short for Alexander (or Alexsandra you idiots), I was christened Alex.
My mother did a great job at finding names that, at the time, we all hated because of the teasing one gets as a small child fending for your own space. Now it's great to have these as our identities, especially for me because Alex is Alex in most languages and nobody spells it wrong (that privilege goes to my surname). She also tried to find names that could not be shortened as she had a dislike for nicknames. My siblings are Delia, Daniel and Bruce, and much to my mother's disappointment we all had names that our friends used, which have since stuck - De, Dan, Al and Bruce, well he could hardly be called Bru. So she managed one out of four I guess.
So now I will hear my name being called in parks, shopping centers, bars, by the pool, on the beach... and for the first time it won't be me that they are yelling at.
I will still turn around though.
Stuck for names for your newborn? You may find a useful name book here at Amazon, try not to use Alex please, there are too many already ;-)
My mother did a great job at finding names that, at the time, we all hated because of the teasing one gets as a small child fending for your own space. Now it's great to have these as our identities, especially for me because Alex is Alex in most languages and nobody spells it wrong (that privilege goes to my surname). She also tried to find names that could not be shortened as she had a dislike for nicknames. My siblings are Delia, Daniel and Bruce, and much to my mother's disappointment we all had names that our friends used, which have since stuck - De, Dan, Al and Bruce, well he could hardly be called Bru. So she managed one out of four I guess.
So now I will hear my name being called in parks, shopping centers, bars, by the pool, on the beach... and for the first time it won't be me that they are yelling at.
I will still turn around though.
Stuck for names for your newborn? You may find a useful name book here at Amazon, try not to use Alex please, there are too many already ;-)
In Australia we tend to shorten names and then optionally put either -o or -sy at the end of them. Padgett = padge or padge-o / Smith = Smithy. To take it further some names in my football team are Del (Del Santo) Rooey (Riwealdt), Joey (Jo Montagna), Milney (Milne), Gilbo (Gilbert), Grammy (Gram), Kosi (Koschitzke), Fish (Fisher), Armo (Armitage), Macca (McEvoy), Blakey (Blake), Schieds (Schnieder), Patto (Patterson). Can't say that I had a particularly hard time with "Malcolm" as I was pretty much always was called either Mal or Padge.
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