Arthur Fuller
artful at rogers.com
Mon May 17 00:17:26 CDT 2004
As I pointed out in a previous msg on this thread, I know 5 John Reids, and all of them are in the software biz. Go figure. Them Irish, they do like to propagate! Check Chicago for example :) (Does anyone else LOVE Miller's Crossing? My fave movie of all time.) I googled my own name and then ran 411.com (a phone number database) and found a painter of the same name died early in the last century and no less than 20 identical names in Canada alone. In short, names alone don't cut it. Add something unique and you have a chance. Phone numbers are candidates, but it could happen that 2 Arthur Fullers reside at the same address (unlikely I admit, but possible). Even SSNs have been demonstrated to be non-unique (counterfeit IDs, bad coding, identity theft, etc.). I don't have a solution. I simply recognize some of the deep problems herein. (Sometimes a single Gustav Brock could work for several companies simultaneously, and have multiple addresses -- at company 123 he lists his address in Denmark; at co. 234 he lists his address in Germany; at co. 345 he lists his address in Rotterdam.) Resolving all these to a single actual Gustav is problematic to say the least. Suppose Gustav also has multiple passports and multiple citizenships. I know several Canadians who have multiple citizenships, and this can decidely work against them. One friend of mine, a Canadian citizen born of French parents but born in Canada, spent a year in France and suddenly found himself drafted into the French army. (Granted this occurred in the 60's and the laws may have changed since, but at that time France took the position that any child born of French parents was a French citizen and therefore entitled to the privilege of being drafted.) And while we're on the subject of names, I am a big fan of Indian and Pakistani music, but owning over 100 CDs in these genres has not helped me deduce the family naming schemes in the slightest. For example, the best tabla player in the world (IMO) is Zakir Hussain. His father is Alla Rakha. His uncles are Ravi Shankar and Ali Ahkbar Khan. Could someone with knowledge of these familial naming schemes please explain same? Does anyone on this list comprehend these naming schemes? I would truly appreciate enlightenment in this area. Vaguely related, my second wife, from Spain, is named Samanth Ruskin Lema. The middle name comes from her father, the last name from her mother. Her mother's name is Flora Azucena Castro Lema, and Flora's father's surname was Castro. She married a man whose surname is Ruskin but nowhere in her name is this indicated. It is only indicated in the names of her children. I would be interested in replies from those non-North-American listers to learn what your naming schemes are. Given a mother whose name is W X, and a father whose name is Y Z, what will be the "family name" of their offspring? In the case of Alla Rakha and Zakir Hussain, there is no relationship whatever. I have no idea how they come up with their progeny's names. But I want to generalize the question and learn about the world's naming schemes. I have probably taken this thread way off-topic and apologize to the moderator(s) for this. But I find this question incredibly interesting, and even if distantly, it bears upon SSH's original question. International replies invited and encouraged. Maybe you should reply to me directly rather than clutter the AccessD thread with this stuff. But I am seriously interested in learning about the world's naming schemes. TIA, Arthur