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There’s nothing as entertaining as watching kids navigate through the big complex world. From an early age, they start meeting new people, socializing with other kids and adults, learning how the social cues and norms work in practice.

That’s where things may get a teeny tiny bit confusing for the little ones. “My 8yo daughter met a girl at summer camp last year named 'Internet.' I said no way, that can't be her name but my daughter has been adamant,” tweeted writer and mom Brianne M. Kohl and added that “For almost a year we've been having this discussion.”

Turns out, the name of that girl from the summer camp was “Antoinette.” The thread immediately blew up on Twitter with many parents sharing similar experiences about their kids getting the names totally wrong. Even adults joined in the fun and shared times they embarrassed themselves by getting confused by people's names.

Below we selected some of the most chuckle-worthy tweets that prove getting a name absurdly wrong is apparently a common occurrence in the children's kingdom.

Image credits: BrianneKohl

#1

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Lp4081 Report

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Sarah Parker
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

By far my favourite on this thread, I love it. Bless her heart! My Nan has her own words for lots of things, and if she can't say someone's name she'll use one that she thinks sounds similar. My best friend of 22 years is called Kirstyn, Nan has always called her Christine..

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We spoke with Samantha A. Deffler, an Assistant Professor Of Psychology at York College of Pennsylvania, who shared some very interesting insights into her research about the misnaming phenomenon. “In surveys of people from a range of ages and backgrounds, we found that misnaming of familiar people was rather common,” she said.

“To be more specific, a sample of undergraduates showed over half reported being misnamed and about 1/3 reported committing misnaming. Of those who had been misnamed, most (95%) said they had been called the wrong name by a family member,” Deffler explained.

#3

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Ian Jones
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's actually Howard. As in "Our Father who art in Heaven, Howard be thy name."

LH25
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The joke I heard was that His name was Andy. As in 'and He walks with me"

IlovemydogShilo
Community Member
2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When I was in school aged about 6 or 7, our teacher taught us all the different names we use for God, such as Lord and Yahweh. She then asked us if we knew any other names and words we use for God. I said "Peter". She replied "no. Peter was one if Jesus' apostles." "But we call God Peter at the end of mass" I protested". "When",? she asked. "When the Priest says Go to love and serve the Lord", and we all say "Thanks Peter God". I genuinely thought we said "Peter God" when it was really "Be to God", and that Peter was God's real name.

Stew
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When we use to say the our father I thought we put our hands out expecting god to put down some bread from the sky into our hands. Our catechism teacher used to say that only if we prayed sincerely we would get results. So I asked her wether we would have to spreaf Nutella or jam on it ourselves that I realised it was daily food. I'm still laughing...and expecting bread to fall from the sky.

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Jef Bateman
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I never made this mistake, but then I never had an infant as a teacher, either.

Margaret Hooper
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I had a friend whose daughter used to say, every night, "Hail Mary, full of grapes..."

Myth illogical
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My daughter used to call Jesus Christ 'Jesus Price' - I think she thought Price was his surname like Norman Price from Fireman Sam.

Christine Jordan
Community Member
3 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Robert Fulghum of "All I need to know I learned in Kindergarten" fame, has a hold chapter dedicated to "Howard" be thy name. And how he thought God's name was Howard. :)

Jayme Bowman
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

LOL When I was in nursery school I could not pronounce my teachers name... I called her miss Lettuce every day ...and then in high school i seen here out and about at the mall, I said Hey Miss Lettuce and she started craking up and knew me instantly...we just laughed...Her name was Miss Gladys LOL

yogi McDougall
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Ok, I'll be honest. When I was young, I thought it was, " for lying in the kingdom" oops

Judith Gidwell
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

As a child taught by nuns, the Hail Mary was said every morning. I often wondered what a monk was doing swimming until I realised it was in fact amongst women!

Darth Bob
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

One night while saying his prayers, our son promoted a priest we know to the Holy Trinity... "In the name of Father John, the Son, and the Holy Spirit..." 🤣

Amanda Hammond
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My brother when little used to say 'Our Father who art in heaven it a hell of a be thy name!

Lord Mysticlaw
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

OK so reading this I immediately though of Harold from The Black List, and wouldn't Harold be the best God ever? Like even better than Morgan Freeman?

tirebiter
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Actually, the name is "Howard". I remember a TV commercial back in the 1980s where a booming voice was talking to a woman, and she called him "Howie". Hilarious.

David Windebank
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I thought He lived in the South West of England. As in "Our Father, who art in Devon...."

Marilyn Ransberry
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Reminds me if being a teacher and the child next to me every morning said” Our Father Do Art in heaven. “

DebK2tog
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I always knew it as "Our father who does art in heaven, Harold be thy name ..." :D

Trophy Husband
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"my mum was an infant school teacher"... I read that as if the mum was an infant who taught school!

SCamp
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I also thought we all said ‘Thanks Peter god’ (as opposed to ‘Thanks be to god’)

SCamp
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

And I thought it was ‘Holy Mary, full of grapes.’

Stew
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

A woman heard a little pray. .. And forgive those who trash pass against us and we forgive those who trash pass against us.

Louise B
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I think many catholics were mind blown when we realised that it wasn't ' A monk swimming' 😲 xxx

Deb Johnston
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I had a friend at church, and there was this hymn called There is a Balm in Gilead, but my friend thought the song was "There is a Bob in Gilead"

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“My colleagues and I think that this phenomenon demonstrates how people organize information about those that they know - people tended to mistake family members for other family members, probably because they were grouping these individuals together in their minds.”

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Moreover, according to Deffler, ‘cross-group’ mistakes were less common “because people from different categories of our lives (e.g., family vs. friends) are not typically associated with each other in our minds.” More broadly, Deffler believes that their findings also point out “that our cognition, particularly our memories, can be flawed - people make naming mistakes even with names that they know really really well, and that is OK and normal!”

Deffler and her team of researchers surveyed people from a lot of different backgrounds and asked them both about being the object of misnaming and the person who committed the misnaming. “We found a range of results for how often older family members misnamed younger family members, but that is likely an artifact of our sample - some of our participants were younger adults without children. We did not specifically look at parent to child misnaming, but our results do allow me to answer this question,” she explained.

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It turns out that most misnaming occurred between two family members and for 3 of our 4 samples, “this misnaming showed a large age effect - family members who were older misnamed younger family members. Anecdotally, a lot of these examples were parents misnaming their children with a string of sibling names,” Deffler concluded.

#8

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DebSue
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

OMG THAT is hilarious - I needed a good wake up laugh this morning. If that was me I would've been laughing so hard they wouldn't have been able to draw blood

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Meanwhile, Lynn How, the experienced educator and author of “Positive Young Minds” and this Facebook teacher coaching group told Bored Panda that how hard it is for a child to get a stranger's name right depends on the individual child and complexity of a name. “Young children are unable to form some sounds so end up calling people by a simpler name e.g. auntie Charlotte might become auntie Lot Lot. Children need repetition to store names in their memory so until a stranger becomes a friend, then it might be tricky to recall their name unless they have an amazing memory,” she explained.

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#12

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Lily bloom
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My daughter accidentally wrote some erotica in third grade last year. She uses talk-to-text and has a very squeaky voice. She began a reading response with "it was jeremy's..." but the program heard "penis gummies". I'm glad I checked her homework that day before she submitted it (I didn't always). I did tell her teacher later because it was too funny not to share and also as a warning that talk-to-text does not always hear my daughter correctly.

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When asked how common naming mistakes are among adults and kids, Lynn said they’re very common, especially if we see someone out of context. “If I see a student in a shop, I might not be able to recall who they are even though I would in school,” she said.

Lynn continued: “Some people are better at recognizing faces, not names. If the name is unfamiliar and complex, it will be more challenging to recall it unless you have committed it to memory with a conscious effort. This can be tricky as people can be quite upset when you can’t remember! I try to get round this by not using their name when I greet them and ask questions that might give me hints without letting on!”

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According to Lynn, the best activity for remembering names on a recent course was to spend 45 minutes with each participant discussing the origin and importance of their names. “I embedded 15 names in my memory easily with this exercise—this has never happened before,” she laughed.

It's no secret that parents and teachers mix up kids' names very often. Lynn said that this is quite normal. She quoted Deffler, a cognitive scientist who states that, “It's a normal cognitive glitch. It's not related to a bad memory or to aging, but rather to how the brain categorizes names. It's like having special folders for family names and friends names stored in the brain. When people used the wrong name, overwhelmingly the name that was used was in the same category, was in the same folder.”

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#16

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Jayne Kyra
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2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My favourite YT gamer is Jesse C*x. And bet they will censor out the surname on BP. EDIT: Damn this ridiculous censorship. Anyway, if anyone likes to watch/listen to game playthroughs, I do recommend Jesse C0x, or at least his earlier work.

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#21

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Jayne Kyra
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2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Does the name 'Paul' not exist in the USA? How different is the pronunciation? I mean, Paul Walker was from California. EDIT: Guys, please stop arguing...

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#23

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CC
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My son's first word was "gen-go" (gentle) for much the same reason 😃

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#24

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Daniel Atkins
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You can tell by the way i stand at the dock I'm a Woman's man it's time to dock. . .

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#27

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#28

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Kiss Army
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Funky Town is the "Taco Body" song thanks to when my son was a toddler. (I will now and forever hear taco body instead of talk about it...)

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#29

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Vanta Black
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

He used to be called Graype but one day he stayed out in the sun too long.

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#32

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Amy Watkins
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Reminds me of the time my cousin (early 20s) had missed a phone call from a friend to announce she'd had her baby. Her teenage brother took the call instead -- and when he was informing his sister of the news, of course she asked, "What did they name the baby?" The brother replied, "I dunno. Something like May I Have A Cookie." The baby's name was Mahalia Corrine.

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#33

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Black Pearl 🇺🇦
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I know a girl named Landrey and a few of my friends call her Laundry instead. They used to joke about us being in a lesbian relationship bc they know I hate jokes like that and they would say "Did you do Laundry last night?"

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#37

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SusanS
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

LMAO! Be careful what you say in front of your children.

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#42

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Lily Langtry
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My friend Erin's dad always called marigolds "eringolds" while she was growing up, so sweet.

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#43

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Aidan Pite
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I actually do know someone whose first name is Princess, so it's not a crazy assumption.

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#45

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Lily Langtry
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Ha, I love it. When I was 3, I kept calling my mom's friend Tish "Tush" instead and didn't understand why they were cracking up...

#47

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Piet Puk
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Please keep kids away from religion untill they are adults and can make their own choices.

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#49

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#51

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Gretchen Esquilin
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

LMAO I did this w/ my sister's friend. I thought her name was Tuna Cole b/c whenever I'd ask where she was going, she'd say, "To Nicole's...." LOL

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#53

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Amy Watkins
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I remember a coworker telling a story of how she dropped off her son Blake for his first day of school, and when she went to pick him up, all his classmates were waving goodbye and shouting, "Bye Blank! Bye Blank!!"

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#61

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Kimi Tomminello
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I've heard "memaw" and "pepaw" as grandma and grandpa quite a few times.

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#64

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Sawdust
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

As in: "Not that I'm a werewolf, but I could go for some lamb chops for dinner."

#66

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M O'Connell
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If anything should changed, a space needs to be added so "Danger" is her middle name!

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#67

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Fricsmom
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I asked my 5 year old niece about her friend. ‘Is it Aimsley with an M or Ainsley with an N?’ ‘Aunt Carra it’s A, a, a Ainsley.

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#72

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Sleazy Weaver
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

look, even if it's a kid, why would you try to correct him on his name? it's his name, he's grown up hearing it & learning it. i think he knows how his own damn name is pronounced, even if it isn't how the name is usually said.

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#79

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Rachel Hall
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My grandsons first word is Dildo. Clear as day, he calls everything dildo, I'm hoping he's trying to say Willow, which is his dogs name. Rather embarrassing when we went out for lunch with my Dad and my grandson kept calling him dildo 🤦

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#80

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Kiss Army
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

One of the kid's in our family couldn't figure out why a boy's parents would name him Rhonda... they thought the the Florida governor they were talking about on TV was Rhonda Santis.

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#83

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#84

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Huddo's sister
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Two of my grandfather's brothers were Laurie and Maurie. I found it funny they would have such similar sounding ones. Then I found out they were their nicknames, their real names were Lawrence and Maurice.

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#87

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Kimi Tomminello
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Lol and the daughter didn't even try to correct her 😆 she must've been chuckling every time her mom said "Martha"

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#88

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Jods
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2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Mick our next door neighbour called me and my sister Joansaphine. He said it was because he could never remember which was Joanne and which one was Josephine. Even though there’s nearly 7 years age difference.