names

When I first visited Greece,I heard people saying 'ela' which means: "come on" or "come here." I thought they all knew my name and were calling out to me since
I'm called Ella.

Anon

When I started 1st grade, a girl told me her middle name was Marie, which is also my middle name. Because of this, I thought everyone in the world had the same middle name so I used to greet my brother by saying "Hi Daniel Marie!"

He still gets mad at me when I call him that

Rebecca

When I was a kid, I always noticed that adults and children seemed to have different sorts of names, and it wasn't common for adults to have the same name as a kid. I thought that was because there were kid names and grown-up names, and everyone would receive a new name when they became an adult, so I always wondered what mine would be

Jackson

I used to believe that my mum's real name was actually mum, and whenever someone called her Janine I would always have to pipe up and correct them!

Jay

This was one of my best mates beliefs up until very recently (we are now 24)

One day we were speaking and she said something that she hadn't meant to at which point I said of you've made a Fruedian Slip. She didn't know what this was so started explaining to her do you know who Sigmund Frued is - She said ' Isn't that the guy with the White Tiger from Las Vegas'

Needless to say I nearly fell over laughing and then proceeded to explain to her that she has gotten confused with Sigfried and Roy - I told her who they were and then she said - ' what ? There's 2 guys ? I always thought that 'Roy' was the Tiger....funniest thing I have ever heard in my life.

Teresa

My older brother used to be really obsessed with dinosaurs, bursting out the scientific names at a young age. When I was 3 or 4 he would call me 'Meredithipithicus'; as in a made-up dinosaur. But because I so often was called this I actually thought it was my name! I went to a store and some lady asked me what my name was. I told her very seriously that my name was 'Meredithipithicus'

Meredith

I used to think "John Doe" was a real person. I asked my mom one time, "Do you think he minds getting talked about all the time?" Then she told me there was no such person!

Boomer

I used to believe that anonymous was a person, and I thought, "Gee, this person writes a LOT of poems!"

Katie Albano

I used to believe that any word that sounded good could be a name. This had unfortunate side effects-my brother got ill and had to have medicine. I asked my mum what it was, and she said it was called Paracetamol.
Guess what happens next..
I loved the name Paracetamol. My grandma bought me a new toy horse. I named it Paracetamol.
(When she asked why, I said
"Because it's never been called anything else!", which I guess was true :)

Miki Sparrow

I used to believe that all of my my Dad's job personalized his tape measure that he took to work. Little did I know that STANLEY was just the brand name.

Erin G

I used to belive that John Travolta's name is Johntra Volta

Maria

I used to believe that some first names were specifically for children and some were specifically for adults.

Marco

I was the oldest child and the only girl in a family with four children. We traveled across a certain road quite often with our parents. Along this road was a hand-painted sign that said "Fill Wanted", asking for people to dump unwanted rock and soil to fill in a low, wet area on someone's property. After passing the sign one day, my middle brother, who had recvently acheived the milestone of reading, asked, "WHO is Fill (Phil)???"

Nan

I used to think there was a name that was spelled "Shopan" and pronounced that way and a different name spelled "Chopin" but pronounced "Choppin", like choppin' wood.

I saw the name "Chopin" in books at the library and I heard "Shopan" being said out loud on the radio, but i didn't realize those were the same name, until someone asked me what my favorite music was. She said she liked "Shopan"'s piano music and i said i liked piano music too, but I've only heard "Choppin"'s music. She laughed and told me the whole thing!

Cousin of a person who used to think Baytoven and Beethoven were 2 different names.

When I heard of the last name Armstrong, I thought it was the name given to people with strong arms and that last names involving body parts were common, for instance a woman with big eyes might be called "Molly Eyebig".

Anon

I used to get mad at some people who went to my church because they named their son Brad and my brother's name was Brad as well. Since my brother was older, I thought it was rude of them to use his name, because he had it first. I was truly convinced everyone in the world had a unique first name and that this was some kind of law.

joy

When I was young, my mom always used to say "I have to do some errands." I have a younger brother named Aaron. So I used to think we were going out to do some "Aarons" and always jealously wondered if we would ever do some "Sandras."

Anon

Up until recently I thought Dame Edna was really a woman - imagine my shock when I opened a magazine that had an interview with his wife!!
What's even more shocking is the fact that I'm 26!

M

In our class were two girls called Emma who, for clarity, were known as "Emma" and "Em". I was a very proper little kid, and was highly offended when everyone started singing a song about their urinary functions - they were nice girls!
It went "A B C D E F G, H I J K
Em and Emma pee......."

Swanny

On a few occasions I'd perused a newspaper and, in an article about the army, noticed that many people had names such as "Pte Johnson". Not knowing that Pte was an abbreviation for "private", I assumed that they were all named Pete but for one reason or another their parents misspelled it on their birth certificate. It then followed logically that this was why there were so many people with this name in the army -- if they had parents with such basic skills as the ability to correctly spell Pete, they may have been able to get a job doing something else.

Jim, UK