How many times in your life people asked you this question? How do you normally answer? By saying your real name, a fake name, or a pseudonym? Do you have only one name?
Do you like your name?
Would you be a postman in Chioggia?
Chioggia represents a unique demographic case in Italy, and world-wide I’d say: because of the exceptional number of people bearing the same surname: either Boscolo or Tiozzo. I’ve looked in the phone book for Angelo Boscolo and I found about 40 of them!
The postmen were losing their minds, everybody’s surname was Boscolo…
Read more: http://www.italymag.co.uk/italy/arts-and-culture/calling-names
Do you know anyone with the same name and surname as yours?
If yes, then this is a case of homonymy!
Your name is there to make you stand out, to differentiate you from others. But then you might run into someone who has the very same name as you. Homonymy can be a problem, rather serious problem, a problem that might mass up the whole system…
This is made very clear in this fragment of the movie »My Name Is Janez Jansa« feauturing the Dominican immigrant Héctor Ramirez Delgado who is having troubles with homonymy since he was a child.
Enlighten by this story I started to ask people around me about this topic and then I made this patchwork out of their answers…
In the next days I’ll post couple of more radical examples of homonymy. In the meantime if you have short personal stories to tell about homonymy I’ll be happy to read them.
Janez