Naming conventions - what's in the name?

Sometimes I get highly confused here in US when e.g. at work someone talks about Zoey or Rory, and in my mind those would be female names (don't ask me why). Then I find out that person in question is male. I also get educated that the name could be a female name too. I was confused in the beginning how one would be allowed to give names which can be given to either or? How would one know which one is in question (male or female)? Simple answer....one necessarily doesn't know based on the name only. That is part of the freedom of expression privilege in US.
After the initial "?" reaction, I found it really fascinating that one has liberated the whole naming convention. Why limit it with borders that names may not have? Instead allow parents to give the child exactly the name they feel that represents the child.

In some cases parents have gotten really creative but then again...so did my mom, even within the limited framework Finland had at the time (read: my grand-mothers resistance to give her grand-child such a crazy name).

In Finland one has to follow a set of framework and the freedom to express the names needs to fit into the legal framework (yes, rather limited freedom here).

Name Law / Nimilaki
Finland might be very gender equal in the cultural habits but what comes to naming a child, there we have actual naming law. One thing the law looks after is that the name is lawful and will not cause problems to the person. They also control that name reflects whether one is male or female. As per that law a person can have 1-3 first names and a last name. This approach follows the German model.
You are allowed to change part of your whole name or full name after turning 16. The changed name will be checked that it fulfills the name law requirements.

I checked that US does have a naming law too but it looks the names more from the perspective that they are not too long. A name can be as per the regulation maximum 26 letters long written in latin alphabetic writing system. It gives the requirement to have at least two names, first and last name. But it allows e.g. Latin American names to be registered, with 2 last names and 2 first names. Which makes things lot easier e.f. for the Hispanic population to continue their naming traditions.

There are certain first and last names, which are prohibited, as well as use of numbers, ideograms and pictograms. In reality though the detailed rules and the practice around naming vary by state. Which reminds me of the good point, I tend to forget...US is not a country. It is continent with many states. It is sometimes tough to remember that closest comparison would be EU.
The US naming law does not seem to take position whether the name should be male or female (based on what I found in internet).

Practice around Finnish First Name(s)
The first name(s) can be hyphenated but they need to be indicating clearly the sex of the person. Also, one of the names need to be identified as the "calling name". It does not need to be the first of the names. The calling name will become the name which school and other places will know to use for the person when addressing him/her.

There is a list of names, which are listed under female names and list of names under male names. The registration of a child's identity will not be accepted by the authorities (church or magistrate) if the paper states that child's sex is let's say female and yet one would wish to name the child e.g. Mika.

Interestingly enough in Finland Mika is a common male name, deriving from Michael. This seem to cause some confusion at times in US and Japan, as in both countries one would consider Mika as a female name. Finnish formula drivers got attention in Japan, not just for their excellent driving but also for their names: Mika Häkkinen and Mika Salo. As one would think they are women.

Many of the Finnish names have their roots elsewhere, they were just "Finninized" during and after the independence. For example the English name George, the Finnish versions are Yrjö or Jyri.

Name Day / Nimipäivä
Finland among 20 other countries (European and Latin American) celebrates name days. Any name, who has more than 1000 bearers will be incorporated to the name day calendar. The name day will mainly be noted by family members, close friends and name sakes. As a child one may have gotten a special treat or a small gift on one's name day.
I grew up without a proper name day since my full first name is one of its kind in the whole country and the name Inna does not have over 1000 living bearers. That never stopped me to celebrate it, I decided to celebrate it on Iina's day. As an adult, after all the years abroad, I stopped celebrating or paying attention to the name day. Especially since none of the friends would anyway pay attention...as it is not in the official name day calendar. The down side of it is that I keep forgetting to pay attention to the name days of family and close friends too. (Sorry to all those dear people for that!)

Practice around Finnish Last Name(s)
Last name comes automatically from the parents unless they do not have a common last name. In that case the parents have to inform, which one of the last names will be transferred to the child. Common habit is to give the father's name. If one fails to inform which of the last name is chosen by the time limit, 2 months from birth, the child gets by law mother's last name.

You cannot either give a last name to be a first name of the child, nor can you change your last name to be one of your first names (e.g. when getting married).

In US it seems to be rather common habit that women drop their original middle name and change their maiden last name as their middle name. Which then allows one to take the husband's last name as their new last name. I like the flexibility to be able to choose the names.

Within the limits, in Finland majority tends to choose the last name of the husband. Other option is to hyphenate husbands last name after one's own last name, e.g. Smith-Meyer. Some keep their own maiden names, especially if the female's maiden last name is unique and she has created a personal brand and network related to that name already.

We have a saying in Finnish:
Ei nimi miestä pahenna, ellei mies nimeä.
The name can't make a man worse, but the man can make his name worse.

If you got interested more information in English:
Most popular names by years in Finland (female / male)

List of most popular names given in US 2014
Wikipedia on Finnish names
Finnish name day calendar
Population service to check how many people exist in Finland with certain name - check if you have name sakes in Finland :)

Seasonal Cultural Funnies

For anyone else this blog post by Martha Stewart is story like any other. But from a Finnish perspective this gets really a hilarious twist. I posted this originally to my Facebook wall and it got so many laughing reactions, that I decided to post it here too. Just to spread the laugh attacks.

Anyone, who is not Finnish speaker, please check as a preparation the translation from Finnish to English for the word Paska.
Then you can move on to the hilarious reading experience. I have read the text several times...each time I end up with a laugh attack, tears in my eyes and oxygen running out. This is too funny! Want to point out that one should take No offense towards Ukrainian baking culture. It just so happens that the story and the play with words hits the humor spots so well!

Martha Stewart Blog Post about Paska

Have fun!!!

A best thank you very much EVER!

,

Less is more....
This is very much the Finnish thinking. In particular when it comes to compliments or feedback. At work we used to joke that "no feedback is positive feedback".

Which of course is the complete opposite of American approach. The two extremes have caused interesting situations in my every day life in US. Below just few examples from the many :)

I noticed a difference during a restaurant visit when my husband talks e.g. to the restaurant staff compared to when I answer to their questions about if everything is satisfactory.
My answer would be something like:"Everything is good, thank you." Which seemed to cause a twitch in their facial expression. Like the waiter had just swallowed a lemon or was about to get an allergic reaction.
At first I did not understand the reason to this. I thought maybe my English was the reason. Thinking that the way I pronounce somethings was about to cause a laugh attack which the waiter tried to hide.
For those who do not know me, my husband describes me as highly fluent in American English without a regional dialect.

I love making own research and doing unannounced psychological tests (do not tell this to my husband, he has not yet figured this out)....when we were asked the question next time in a restaurant, I kept silent and waited my husband to respond. With high interest I observed the reaction of the waiter.
My husband responded something like:" Yes, everything is great. Thank you very much!"
The waiter walked away with a smile....NO face twitching.

HA!!! I nailed it....Simple sincere "thank you" or even the expression:"everything is good" is simply not enough here.

I can only wonder why though....
Those are positive expressions and it should be more than plenty to show that one is satisfied. Or is it that people say those simplest forms of gratitude because they do not dare to express being unhappy? US is THE country of unlimited return policies and flexible customer service "customer is the King". Which means that saying out loud honest opinion about food being too salty or too greasy should be totally ok. It should result to being able to get another portion or discount at least.

In Finland if one gives the direct feedback of e.g. food being too salty, it is often received in a constructive manner, yet it does not mean that you get a new portion or your money back. Regardless we do say our honest opinion, especially as customers. That is the only way to make things better, keep making our world a better place.

Back to my way of showing I am content....
To proof my hypothesis I tested myself the reaction if I answered like my husband does. I did not get
any facial twitching reaction. Nobody swallowed lemons or got any other sudden allergic reactions.

Still if I am generally just happy and thankful, I will continue say "thank you" and "good". With the risk of getting twitch reaction on the waiter's face.
The logic is simple...at my work, which is also at customer service related industry, I do not get anything else either for an average performance.  Average is actually not really preferred by my employer.
When I do my work well it means that I need to be one step ahead of my client and be able to be proactive instead of reactive. It does not matter what time the work day ends if my client needs me, I am there. I need to spot their needs before they ask for it. The same I expect from the waiter before I say "great" "thank you so much".

Same goes for the hotels. I do not leave tips to get better service. I leave tips IF I get better service or I leave a positive written feedback. Finns in general leave tips e.g. for restaurant staff if they think service was good. At hotel one would generally never leave tip for cleaning, as one pays for that already in the room price. If the room cleaning service was great, one would leave few dollars.

It is the simple thinking again, the money needs to be earned. Somehow in US the consumers seem to have forgotten it. How does one help anyone to improve their performance by leaving money in advance in the hope of getting better service? That trains the whole service industry to get reactive instead of proactive. Also, leaving the money before one has seen any results means that one is throwing money out of the window. As the fact is...how can you ever really compare if you actually got any better service?
I have tested this scenario in all possible forms as well during my lengthy stays at certain Hilton...and guess what? Spoiler alert: It made no difference whether I left the tip on day one or at the last day or did not leave tip at all. The room was in the same condition each time.

We Finns generally say what we think but not more than that. We have the joke that on the second day of the relationship the Finnish male says "I love you and I let you know if it changes".
Which brings me to one slang expression that keeps wiping me off my feet: "best XXX ever!"

I asked one evening from my husband what does it literally mean. Simply because I had the feeling that I might not understand its full meaning. To me the magnitude of the expression and how carelessly it is being spread around created a contradiction.

To me it sounded like it would mean that e.g. "best cocktail ever!"
(please do not hang yourself to the cocktail...just wanted to come up with something neutral and something you could relate to) would mean that:
A) one is comparing to all "cocktails" one has drank previously (which in all cases would not be valid...as sometimes one seem to state this slang saying about first time objects / experiences)
B) the "cocktail" one is now enjoying is better than ALL the previous cocktails. If it was cocktails my Finnish sense of humor wants to ask:"Would you even remember how each one of them tasted?" ;)

Little did I know...this one goes even further, which knocked my socks off totally. Apparently in the full meaning of the saying one is not only stating this comparing one's own previous experiences but everyone else's...int the whole world. As a Finn....I can only say: :"No huh huh! Holy smokes!"

I consider it as hard work and true accomplishment if I am able to rank my life time experiences. I find it so hard to rank e.g. the cities I have lived; best to least liked or top 3. Not to mention that I would consider overruling everyone else's opinions and experiences. No way....I respect their opinion, experiences and feelings too much. We Finns tend to be modest anyway on the "tuuletus" front. We say one is "airing" when one is boasting or expressive about something positive.

Which means that you can probably forget about hearing this expression from my mouth.

I know it is probably one woman mission but I am going to continue my way to show that even small positive expressions are POSITIVE. Thank you! :)

The roots behind the saying "less is more":
http://www.abstractconcreteworks.com/essays/lessismore/ls_s_mor.html

Numbers and alphabets in American style

Though I am not native speaker, one thing that Finnish school system is great about is grammar and spelling in foreign languages. Which is good cause in average in US one gets to spell things lot more than what I was used to in Finland and e.g. in Germany.

Finnish tends to be more phonetic with the logic "what you see is what you get". So, for names and addresses one does not come across the need to spell them out loud unless they are of foreign origin.
US being the mecca of everything-being-originally-more-or less-of-foreign-origin and with some localization attempts in between something that sounds the same can be written in dozens of different ways.

It seems that here I tend to get myself in trouble, has happened more than once. No matter how carefully I try to spell.

When spelling my current last name it tends to always get still wrong.
In the beginning I spelled it on the phone the way I had gotten used to doing it e.g. while living in Singapore: R-double O-S.
I stopped saying the "double O", cause nearly 90% of the time that resulted to ROSS or RWS :o)

After the wedding in June I will have really easy name from local perspective...so I trust that will decrease the need of spelling my last name :o)

When it comes to giving the address or talking about numbers, getting married won't solve that one...
Again, I have started giving the address the way I learned to do it in Singapore (and honestly it worked there!!). But here for some reason when I say " seven-hundred and five" or "seven-hundred-five" it results to 7005. Thanks to that I have been waiting for my laptop now for 2 weeks back from the repair. The poor UPS courier must be so fed up by now..... Running around and trying to find a building that does not exist. Every time UPS called I confirmed the address to be " seven-hundred and five". Which basically continued the poor UPS guy to get totally confused and the computer was sent back few times to shipper.

As I was guided by my fiancé I should give the numbers as: seven-[oh]-five. Though he confirmed technically I was saying correctly as " seven-hundred and five".

After 4 calls and changing the way to seven-[oh]-five I have been successful and get my laptop back tomorrow :o) :o)

When I am at the store, if the amount to pay would be, let's say the same 705 dollars. Then the right way is " seven-hundred and five". Though, there it seems to have variations....depending on where one is :o)

I learned a lot again.....knowing how to spell perfectly or how to technically do it right, does not guarantee the right results :o)