For example, I was doing research for a blog article and found a paper by a guy named Christian Messenger. That man was definitely destined for missionary work, but the paper was about football.

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[–] 91 points 2 years ago

I knew a guy who is called Gerard Menfroy. This is pronounced exactly the same as « J’ai rarement froid » in French, which means « I rarely feel cold ». He was Heating engineer.

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  • [–] 65 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    There's a name for that; nominative determinism

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  • [+] 60 points 2 years ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 child)
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    [–] 59 points 2 years ago

    I used to work in a call center and had a notably irate customer named Mrs. Bitschy. I tried pronouncing it like "Beeshy", and she immediately snapped "It's Bitchy! Got a problem with that!?" Oof.

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  • [–] 50 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    My husband’s vasectomy was performed by Dr. Wiener.

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  • [–] 41 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    The pilot on my plane a few years back was named Max Power

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    [–] 39 points 2 years ago

    I think he retired during Covid, but a nearby lasik clinic was run by Dr. Biglaiser. I don’t see how that could have been his real name.

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  • [–] 27 points 2 years ago (1 child)
  • [–] 25 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    There was a trial against members of the NSU, a German extremist-right terrorist organisation, a few years ago and the lawyers representing them were named Sturm (storm), Heer (army) and Stahl (steel). In combination they sound like something a Nazi came up with to make them sound powerful and strong.

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  • [–] 22 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    I remember reading about a military guy, Staff Sergeant Max Fightmaster. I have no idea what he actually does (or did; guy's probably retired by now) but if he hasn't at least spent some time teaching martial arts he's doing it wrong.

    Edit: apparently he's a computer technician and that's even better somehow.

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    [–] 21 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Gay Hitler. Worst part is he was born before those were offensive names or terms but lived long enough for them to get there meaning. Wasn't even meant to have the last name Hitler, It was a misspelling of Hiddler or something like that.

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    [–] 19 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    This is gonna sound fake, but I knew a butcher named Butch Pig. He was Butch before he was a butcher

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  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago

    11 hours in and no Usain Bolt???

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  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    There was a racing driver named Scott Speed. Unfortunately he's got no speed.

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    [–] 15 points 2 years ago

    Wolfgang Wolf was at some point manager of German club Wolfsburg!

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago

    I work in dairy company, once I was checking SAP for something and saw a name-surname "Olgun Erkek" (Mature Male in Turkish). We are receiving his raw milk, it is like porn name when you picture it like that.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago

    There is a doctor near us named Dr. Owi.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago

    Had a religious studies teach called Mrs Holyland

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago

    The original head of Teslas autopilot division is named Andrej Karpathy. car-path-y

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I used to work in a call center and once took a call from a guy named Jacob J. Justice. Guy should've been a Marvel superhero.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I work in a 911 dispatch center, we used to have a frequent caller in our area whose first name contained the word "trash," and, well, they were trashy. We had cops there pretty much every day for some dumb trashy domestic bullshit.

    Also took a call from a guy who's name was very similar to "Roger Rogar." Not his actual name, given the nature of my job I don't want to give out any potentially identifiable information about my callers, but same basic pattern, first name exactly the same as his last name except for one letter and, at least as well as I could hear over the phone, pronounced exactly the same.

    Also a truly dumbfounding amount of girls named things like princess and diamond.

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    [–] 12 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Kid at school named Miles Long.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago

    I had a taxi driver once who's last name was snel. Which is Dutch for fast or quick or speed.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago

    Lots of nominative determinism in this thread.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    There's the newspaper columnist with the world's record highest IQ, Marilyn vos Savant. In French, you can read her name as "your (plural) scholar/scientist." When I was a kid, I was sure that it was a pen name, but it turns out it's actually her mother's maiden name.

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    [–] 9 points 2 years ago

    Dr Healey. Nice.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    There's an HGTV person named Page Turner.

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    [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    Not sure if this is what you were going for, but I had a high school teacher named Mr. Student.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    There are several dentists in my area that have the last name of Beaver. They’re all related and it seems like the original one felt like that was too good of an opportunity to pass up on, and subsequent generations joined the family business.

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    [–] 6 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    My daughter had to visit an allergist and his name was Dr. J. Doctor

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    [–] 6 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    These are called "aptroynms" and Wikipedia has a great list of them and also inaptroyms. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym

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    [–] 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    In Germany there was a couple therapist named Von Hinten, which translates to From Behind as in doggy style. Last I heard she perished in the Christmas tsunami.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    There's a meme image of a screenshot of a news broadcast featuring a fireman named Les McBurney.

    This sort of thing apparently happens enough that it has a name: an aptronym.

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    [–] 5 points 2 years ago*

    A dude named Sobriety Promise (both words were his first name). That guy's parents were assholes to name their kid that. Bro had to announce that his parents used to be drunk losers every time he said his name lmao. He went by his middle name and changed it as soon as he could. Poor guy. It's no wonder he became an alcoholic later 😐

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Went to high school with a girl who's dad was named Foster Goodwill

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  • Went to high school with a girl named Amber Brown. And she was.

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