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First of all, just so as not to lose the thread topic: First name - Ravi - name of sun god in Sanskrit. Middle name - Shankar (one of Lord Shiva's names, and one my grandfather had) - contracted to the easy-to-pronounce 'shanks' for the internet. Phew - got that hoary old one out of the way. Now...
Shoshannah,
You speak of 'Yeshua' and 'Yehoshua'. In which scripts were these names written? My understanding is that Hebrew orthography includes no vowel sounds, hence the tetragrammaton (sp?) YHWH that is conventionally (but not necessarily authoritatively) rendered as Yahweh, or even 'corrupted' to Jehovah. What authority do we have for the pronunciation of any Hebrew vowels. Or has Yeshua ben Israel come to us from koine Greek or Latin?
Interested in London
the sunshine (from the 'sun god' Ravi) warrior ('Nair' - lordly caste of Kerala, and notionally, fighting people.)
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I've been waiting for a few quiet moments to tap this out... maybe this is my opportunity! I can relate to Bean's husband - my first name is Dagny (one of the female counterparts to the man's name, Dag). As Bean mentions, Dag means "day" in Norwegian. The "ny" suffix is actually an adjective, meaning "new". As this is a traditional Norsk name, I'm imagining that Scandinavia got a head start on the hippy movement.  My last name is Haug - "hill" in Norwegian. The northern European convention (and I'm speaking broadly here...) is the whole "-son" and "-datter" suffix thing. If your father's name is Peter and you caught the y chromosome ferry, voila! Your last name is "Peterson" ("Petersen", "Pederson", "Pedersen", ad infinitum...)! Well, on that day in 1901 that my dad's parents went through US Immigration, the official felt he had seen his quota of Pedersons. "Pick a new name. Now." So my grandparents chose Haug at random, primarily because the farm they had just left in Norway was located on a hill. And here I am. My middle name is Pernille, but I have no idea on the origin of that one, other than it was my dad's sister's name and my mom liked the traditional sound of it. And you've got to admit, it would blow the euphony to smithereens if they had chosen to name me something like "Dagny Sue Haug".  When I was growing up, I wasn't really fond of my name, predominantly due to the mispronunciations. For a brief period in the 80s, my junior high and high school classmates got a real kick out of handing me flatware... so that I was "Dagny with a spoon" (let me know if that requires further explanation). I would imagine I was around 15 or 16 when it occurred to me that I had a unique enough name that I was almost guaranteed tabula rasa when it comes to making a first impression... I've observed a social tendency to make certain assumptions about people if you already know someone by the same name. (This seems to be less an issue for people of extraordinarily common names like John, Mike, Tom...) To wit: I have a friend by the name of Ian. There aren't a whole lot of Ians running around, but it's not inconceivable that one might run across another one. And when I do, there are aspects of Ian's personality that I automatically assign to the newfound Ian, be they right or wrong. But with a name like Dagny, I rarely meet anyone who has ever heard the name before, much less having known another Dagny. Of course, if my new friend has read any Ayn Rand, I'm pretty much screwed... that Dagny is not very nice!  But I've found that it works to my advantage the majority of the time. And certain friends were keeping me apprised of my performance on the Norwegian women's Olympic soccer team last summer! So now I'm grateful for the uniqueness of my name. Anyone else have similar observations regarding the potential baggage carried by a familiar name?
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Joined: Jan 2001
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Certainly the unusual name phenomenon, when one gets out of high school where all the pressure is to be a Lisa, Jennifer, or Greg, comes in handy. This happened with my husband a few days ago when he called a store which he used to visit all the time in Winnipeg. No need for "This is Dag Tollefsen" for him. Just "This is Dag" and the guy immediately remembered him. However, people are not really used to unusual names in Newfoundland yet (the land of Heathers, Pauls, Jacks, Amys) so we often wonder if the reason he never hears back on some job applications is because the person is afraid of trying to pronounce his name. My Turkish friend with the Turkish huband with the Turkish name seems to be suffering from the same problem, too. And also funny - just before this name thread came up, my husband and I were talking (in an abstract way) about potential baby names. Everything he said, I hated because I had known some terrible person by that name, and everything I said, he disliked for the same reason. I wonder if there are any names out there that don't carry emotional baggage for us? The only names I ended up liking were those of my very good friends! I'd better not get too chummy with the Board people or I'll end up with children named Sparteye, Fiberbabe, wwh, and Bobyoungbalt!!!!! 
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My first name is so common and so pronouncible, that there has never been any problem with it. But Young (spelled and pronounced Jung until the 1880's) is something else again. An easy name for English speakers, but not to others. When my wife and I lived in Italy, the Italians could not pronounce it. Eventually she had to get used to being addressed as Signora Djungay or something like it. What's even stranger is that Orientals seem to hear it as a Chinese word, or they think it's John. Often, after being asked what my name is, I get the reply, OK John, ....
And at least 5 or 6 times in the last 10 years someone has asked me or my wife if we are Chinese.
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> ...Just "This is Dag"...Yeah, I can usually get away with that too! Although I have the same problem with people's reticence to attempt pronunciation ~ and more than once, people assumed I was a man because they couldn't envision a "Dagny" as anything else. Come to think of it, I came very close to being elected a prince of my high school winter court! Word travels fast when your gender has been unintentionally transmogrified. (Hi Max!) 
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Most of my friends call me Dave. I've heard it's short for David -- confirm anyone
Carpe whatever
Carpe whatever
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Posts: 3,409
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Welcome back Dave. As to what Dave is a contraction of, I would hesitate to be so presumptuous as to hazard a guess. I did onece know someone called "Mike" who was forever telling people that the name on his birth certuificate was Mike, not Michael. So, for all I know, your Dave might not be short for anything at all. 
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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One funny thing about first names. At least by the time you can walk, you have a nickname. Why not start with the nickname?Only when my mother was angry with me did she use my given name.
I have never heard Dave except as a nickname for David.
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Joined: Aug 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Why not start with the nickname?
My younger sister was born when I was about 17 months old, before I began talking. When I did start, I had trouble with her name, mispronouncing it billabong. That nickname didn't really stick, except for jocular usage, but, thirty years on, she lives in the land of billabongs.
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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
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Alas, Bill, i have never had a nick name! Helen doesn't lend its self to one, and my mother hated nick names-- she had been "nick named" as child, and to this day, many people don't know her given name.. (no relation to her nick name).
So if you called on the phone and asked for Dee instead of Deidre-- and my mother answered-- you would get told that "there is no one named Dee at this household" The same held true for other siblings... no nick names.
I followed the same rule-- my son is Benjamin, not ben, or benny, or (ugh!) benji. but he has an alter ego name from his middle name.. Elijah-- and can be found many places on the web as "eli the bearded"-- but since he took down his web page, his name gererates few hits.
my ex never used a pet name or nick name for me-- so i remain plain old helen..
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