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The Last Word

" The name of a human is not like a coat, which hangs on him and can be pushed and pulled, but a perfectly fitting dress, like the body's skin which you can not scrape and scratch without hurting the human."

(Goethe: Poetry and Truth, 2nd part, 10th book)

Of course, a Goethe-quotation.
Actually I'm not a big Goethe fan, but this quotation offers a suitable entrance in the topic. Behind the pathetic form is the simple statement that the name is closely connected with the name carrier - although the normal name carrier usually has no influence on his first name. Would be very strange if someone would change his name to Georg Müller, for example. Only things with names exist. Of course not in the strictly scientific sense, but for our perception.

Whether it pleases us or not, but our name is with us through the entire life. Under this name we get adressed and identifiable, it is the interface between us and our environment... and we identify ourselfes with this name. Already therefore, from its technical function, a name is not "sound'n'smoke", like a (german) phrase wants to make us believe.
Since the name is like a second skin, one thinks rarely about this. We react only if our name gets confused or spoiled to a little-loved nickname. Well, nicknames are like the weather, one cannot change it and should accept it just like it is. And name confusions? I remember my dear grandmother, who often addressed me with the name of my cousin/her grandchild Gregor. And although it was completely clear that she meant me and no one else, I had to point out that my name is Georg, not Gregor. You don't even need a Goethe-quotation to understand this, it's just the way it is!

The first name Georg...

... appeared to be the embodiment of an unfashionable and dusty old name, when I was a child. Nobody was called that! At that time a serious fault, today... well... with that surname (Germanys most frequent) rather a lucky circumstance.
Long time the pronunciation of my first name appeared to be strangely stiff and screwed. Today this detail is explicable, at least in phonetic regard, because there are only very few german names, in which two vowels are in contact without being pronounced as a diphtong, and with the need to be articulated separately. So there are two pronunciaton possibilities of the first name Georg. Firstly, by making a break between the vowels like in (German) The´ater or in (German) be´atmen: Ge´org. (This tiny short break, called glottal stop, is responsible for the fact that German really sounds or at least is felt as hard and rough by nations whose native language has no glottal stop, e.g. Swedes, Englishmen, Americans. A Swedish friend told me once, German sounds like a compost shredder.) Secondly, by not making a break between the vowels like in (German) re-agieren: Ge-org.
(Thirdly, by avoiding any vowel combination and saying Schorsch or Dschordsch. 8-)
It's interesting that nearly all short forms and modifications of the name Georg contain conscious (?) reversals of the e-o-vowel sequence into o-e: (German) Görg, Jörg (Jürg), (Swedish) Göran.