Sunday, September 25, 2011

Names and Such

Yesterday was the first class for my 4 advanced beginner women here in my village.  They asked me what the short names are for Patricia.  Everyone here uses nicknames for their formal first names. (And they always introduce themselves with 3 names.  There is a lot of commonality between first and last names, family names are traditionally passed on to new generations, so the middle name is usually a distinguishing factor in introductions.  There may be 20 Nevena Petrovas but only 1 Nevena Dimitrovena Petrova.)

Anyway, the ladies wanted to know if I ever used a short version.  After going through my name history of marriages (2)  and a chosen name change  for 10 years (all of which they thought was hilarious) we talked about nicknames for Patricia - Pat, Patti, Tricia, Trisha, Patsy, Ricia.  I said I had been Patti (which in Bulgarian would be Pati (they don't use repeating letters often).  The laughed because Пате (Patay) means cute little duckling.  Awwwww - maybe it's time for a new nickname.  I like it.

No comments:

Post a Comment