names

I used to believe that I was a boy, and I told anyone that asked that my name was Stephen Timothy James. Particularly embarrassing for my mother when someone told her that I would grow up to be a fine young man.

Caroline

I used to believe Toby and Tammy were names for cats only. I was surprised to meet humans with those names. (I got used to it, though...)

Auntie Cloti

in 2nd grade we took a test to get into the GATE program (gifted and talented education) on all my info after getting into the program my name had a @ sign at the end. My name is Samantha so i thought that the office thought it was a cool way to write my name. With a @ sign instead of an A. I thought I was so special.

Samanth@ not so gifted and talented

When I was very, very young I thought that when you grew up you were given an "adult name." I spent a long time wondering what name I would be given (Elizabeth sounded so childish) and was actually a bit afraid of getting a scary adult one like my mother's (Harriet).

I eventually worked up the courage to ask my mother about it. Her reply boggled my mind.

Anon

One Halloween when I was about 3, I was really afraid of all the trick or treaters comming to our door. My mom thought she could make everything better for me by explaining to me that all the monsters were just coming to get candy. I was terrified and ran to hid under my bed. It took her a little while to figure out I was so scared because my name is Candy and she had told me they were coming to get "candy".

candy

When I was about 5 years old I remember hearing the name "Pat Buchanan" on the news a lot, but it never occured to me that "Pat" could be a man's name. I always heard it (and still sometimes think of him as) "Patthew Cannon."

E

My older brother's nameis Michael and we call him Mike for short. So when I asked my mom what the fat thing plugged into the wall with a door was, she answered, "That's a microwave." I was heartbroken, and angry that my brother had a kitchen appliance named after him but I didn't!

Kaitlyn

When I was born, my parent's never gave me a middle name. When I asked my parents why, they'd tell me it was because we were poor and that it cost extra to have a middle name. Then when I was 15 and I met my (then) boyfriend's parents, they asked my what my middle name was. I explained to them that I didn't have one. They asked "why?" I told them it was because my parents couldn't afford one. They explained back to me that they thought that was very odd, because they didn't have much money when they had kids, and that they didn't have to pay extra for their kids' middle names. I had FINALLY figured out after all those years my parents had me fooled.

Marni

My Godmother's name was "Yvonne" and I thought everyone was saying "Your vonne" when they talked to me about her cause she was MY godmother. So, I called her "Myvonne."

A Wild Cowgirl

I thought that my parents didn't have names at all. I believed that we called them mom and dad because they didn't have real names to actually called them. I was so shocked when my mom was on the phone and said "Hi, my name is Theresa". I went up to her, tapped her on the shoulder and said "YOU have a name?!"

Anon

I used to get mad when people used the word "native" because I thought they were making fun of my name!

Nate

i used to belive that if you had an name that was common among old people,(such as bob, ina, ethel, henry) you would live longer than if your name was uncommon. i was sad because my mom made up my name.

anon

I worked for a daycare watching the 2 and 3 year olds and one day I had a little boy and a little girl. The little girl, Diamond, her mother came to pick her up in the middle of nap time. When the little boy woke up, realizing that Diamond was gone, ran up to me and asked where Diamond was. I told him that her mommy came to pick her up. The with the most innocent eyes he looked up at me and said, "but Miss Sara, the man on tv said that Diamonds are forever."

Sara

I am Caucasian, and when I was in kindergarten, I made my first African-American aquaintence, who happened to have the same name as me. We were the same age and size and found that we had similar interests and beleifs. This made me believe that there was an African-Amercian version of each Caucasian in the world.

Matt Rouse

i used to think that Ellen Degeneres was called Ellen the generous

Kelly

When I was very young I thought my mom and dad were actually named "Mom" and "Dad"! I think once I even called where my Dad worked asking to talk to "Dad" and got mad when they didn't know who I meant!

Hexetic

Me and my brother used to believe that Beethoven's first name was Bay and his middle name was Toven, because we had only heard his name out loud and never read his name in a book before. We would always wonder what his last name was and why he was only called by his first and middle names, until we asked our mom what his last name was and she explained the whole thing to us.

Sarah

When I was little, I assumed (incorrectly) that all people got to choose their own nicknames, and it was only a coincidence that many of them were shorter versions of their actual names (like 'Sam' for Samantha). I thought that everyone else was just really bad at thinking up their own nicknames, and since I liked the name Jennifer so much, I decided my nickname would be Jennifer.

Sarah

I knew that boys who were named after their fathers were called "Junior". Therefore, I figured the name "Minnie" was for girls who were named after their mothers. (mini)

Kristen

Everytime a family member would leave for a trip, everybody would hug them and say "Save Jenny". I always wondered who this 'Jenny' was since we don't have a family member called Jenny. Of course, I also wondered what kind of trouble she was in that she needed to be saved of. I imagined a lot of adventures for Jenny and hoped she wasn't in jail or kept hostage or something. It took me a while to figure out that they were saying "Safe Journey" -_-'.

Jean, who wishes her hearing improves as she ages.