Despite the fact that my name is simply Juan Miguel Valverde Martinez, many people have problems with it. During my youth I hated having a compounded name because even in my own country it causes confusion. Teachers used to mix it up with other names ending up in combinations like Jose Miguel, Juan Manuel, and so on. Then, when I moved out abroad, I had to add two more problems: my name and surnames are foreign and therefore it’s difficult to remember, and the fact that I’m from Spain implies that I have two (yes, two) surnames and no middle name.
Many people also ask me about my nickname “lipman”. The truth is that it’s so old (I’m using it since I’m 13) that I forgot where it coma from, but since it’s a real surname I might have just seen it and copied it.
Anyways, this post is a sort of hall of fame of events in my life that resulted in a funny misunderstanding of my name. I like to think that every time I see this it will bring make me a bit nostalgic about those glorious past days.
This is the final project of my BSc, written in Turku, Finland. It should be “Valverde Martinez Juan Miguel” but they decided that just Martinez will be my surname.
This is not really about my name, but my good friend @rNiubo decided that my twitter account will be different from now on. jmlipman would have been a better choice.
This is my mailbox in Copenhagen, Denmark. I have to admit that I would never expected mixing up “i” and “e”, but it’s true that the sound kind of similar.
My nickname gave me some problems too, including people thinking that’s my real name or surname.
When I say people, I also include banks. How could they write my real name on the letter receiver’s address and wrong on my official “bank account”? Well, at the end I had to do all the process again.
This is from a really nice event called NordicAI held in Copenhagen. I had a lot of fun, but again, I would had never expected something like this.
Even my girlfriend forgot that I have two surnames. I can’t believe she forgot the most important one!
However, probably in Japan is where it gives me more problems since names are usually shorter when written in kanji.
