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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2478 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 31, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I’d say to just own your name and wear it with pride, but some suggestions if you insist:

  • Donald
  • James David
  • Charles
  • Benjamin
  • Tucker
  • Nicholas
  • Andrew
  • Braden
  • Jordan

Regarding wearing it with pride, I'm not doing this for the validation of others; that's the least of my concerns. One of the many ways America is unique is that I can be whoever I please regardless of whether I'm in California or in Mississippi, which I've grown to appreciate as the same can't be said for the part of Europe where I'm temporarily based in. I'll share my response to birb_cromble explaining my rationale here.

Hmm, I get your sentiment, but my rationale is that I can still retain a subtle reminder of my heritage while changing the suffix of my surname from -ov to -off. I grew up watching the same American movies and TV shows my peers did, and always wished I could have a WASPier name, or at least an international one that isn't so aggressively Slavic. Rawhide Kobayashi is still descended from the Kobayashi family, even if he now goes by Rawhide.

I won't deny that aesthetics play a role. I know that in a large and diverse Sun Belt metro area, people will be nonplussed by some guy with a Russian name otherwise acting like an ordinary Southern man, but I just love the way Randy Smirnoff or Hank Smirnoff would sit on me as I wear my Reagan Bush '84 hat and drive my Ford F-150, as opposed to my current Ivan Smirnov (not my actual name, using another name that is as exceedingly Russian in order to demonstrate my point).

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