Patrick helped me registering with Flying Blue before our flight to Paris for the MAOW event, but he accidentally mixed up the fields for first and last name (because KLM is stupid enough to ask for the last name first, and the first name last) so I ended up with a card that says “Tenser David.”
What’s worse, it seems this is now slowly being picked up by our good friends across the Atlantic too:
By the way, I’m in Mountain View right now for a marketing work week with Mozilla. I love it!
by Gary Kwong
11 Nov 2008 at 06:21
Well, you should go to Singapore / China, where it’s common to have the last name first. I’ve grown used to people calling me “Kwong Gary” on official documents..
by Simon
11 Nov 2008 at 06:21
Well, travel can be stressful, so perhaps the new name fits.
by Cesar
11 Nov 2008 at 10:05
Those pistachios look delicious. The nuts next to them remind me of popplers (http://www.ssfuturama.cz/info/nations/races/poppler.jpg).
by Brian King
11 Nov 2008 at 12:48
And thus you should always be known. Look on the bright side, it is better than being called ‘The Life of Brian’. I love this community!
by Robert Kaiser
11 Nov 2008 at 15:44
In German, you usually can write given and family names (I’m intentionally not using “first” and “last” for them here) in any order you want, so I can be called “Robert Kaiser” or “Kaiser Robert” anywhere and both variants are correct (that’s one reason why I came up with “KaiRo” derived form the latter order of names). I know in my languages, just like in English, it’s usual to separate them with a comma if you’re writing family name first – while this is used around here sometimes, it’s usual to not have a special separator in that order either.
BTW, “Kaiser Robert” sometimes sounds just like “King Brian” (“Kaiser” being the German word for “Emperor”) – it’s nice to sound aristocratic sometimes
by maf
11 Nov 2008 at 16:05
No, KLM is not stupid. You’re stupid for thinking that nowhere in the world could the family name be the first name. Even in Europe, several countries put the (more important) family name first, especially in official documents.
by David Tenser
12 Nov 2008 at 08:00
Brian: Ha! That’s what you always say though: Always look on the bright side of life!
by Patrick Finch
12 Nov 2008 at 14:42
@maf KLM is stupid: fair enough that the ask for their keys first rather than your name as you use it, but if you look at the registration form, they as for the salutation first, THEN the surname, then the first name. So to enter the data correctly, I should have written “Mr Tenser David”. Great. I lived in the Netherlands for 10 years and I do not consider this common.
@Life of Brian: Blessed are the cheesemakers.
by Brian King
14 Nov 2008 at 23:17
Finchie (what name did we christen you anyway?) : I’m not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!
More fun:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079470/quotes