What's In A Name?

So a new pope has been elected.
Not being Catholic, that shouldn’t really mean anything to me, and honestly, it doesn’t, beyond the fact that the elected pope opted to go with the name “Benedict.”
Why does the name Benedict mean anything to me? Because it’s not John Paul.
Throughout most of my life there has been a pope named “John Paul,” starting with the extremely short papacy of Pope John Paul I back in 1978 and followed by his successor, Pope John Paul II.
This fact has meant that, the different spelling notwithstanding, there has been only a brief period in my life in which no one pointed out to me that my name was the same as the pope’s.
Yes, that’s right; for those of you not already aware of it my name is actually Jon-Paul.
I usually avoid going by my full name simply because of the inevitable pope references.
The worst part is that every person who make some comment about it thinks that he or she is the first person to ever come up with it:

“Hey, I just realized…did you know that your name is the same as the pope’s?”
“Gee, really? I wasn’t aware of that? After all, it’s not like every fucking person I ever met in the last twenty-five years has felt the need to point that out to me. How uncannily perceptive of you to make that connection when no one else has ever been able to.”

The other variation would usually go something like this:

“Hey, you’re just like the pope!”
“Well, I’m not Catholic, I’m not Polish, I don’t live in the Vatican, I don’t wear a funny hat, and my car hasn’t had to be made bulletproof, so yeah, you’re right: I’m exactly like the pope.”

Of course, it could be pointed out that I do have the whole celibacy thing going for me, but that’s neither here nor there….
In any case, after the pope’s demise I was a little concerned that his successor would carry on the tradition and become John Paul III, keeping the pope connection going for who knows how much longer.
So let’s hear it for Pope Benedict XVI! May his papacy last long enough for the name John Paul to become displaced in people’s minds.
Too bad there probably aren’t very many people in the world named “Benedict” who will have to put up with all the crap I had to, though…
Of course, this doesn’t really free me up to use my full name anyway, since there always the “John Paul Jones” connection (both the historical and musical figure), and, the more recent, “Hey Jon-Paul, where’s George-Ringo?”
That last one doesn’t bother me too much, as it is kind of clever, and because most people don’t manage to think of it I don’t hear it too often.
Apart from the connections to other people with a similar name, my name has been the source of innumerable small annoyances throughout my life (small annoyances that cumulatively amount to a very big annoyance).
Take, for instance, the “Jon” portion of it.
Most people seem to be incapable of getting it through their heads that there is no “H” anywhere to be found in my name.
Consistently, though, people will add the “H” no matter what.
For example, at work I frequently engage in IM conversations with people. My business screen name includes my actual name, spelled correctly, and yet I will still have things like this happen:

JonwithnoH: Hello, this is Jon.
Randommoron753: Oh, hey John, how’s it going?

Also, I don’t have a middle name. People find that almost impossible to believe, and in some cases it just totally blows their minds and completely shatters their views of reality.
Some people (and I’m not kidding) have actually gotten angry about it, insisting that my middle name absolutely, positively has to be “Paul” and will refuse to even consider the notion that Jon-Paul is actually a single first name and that I have no name following it other than my last name.

“You have to have a middle name.”
“Really? I wasn’t aware that there was some sort of law about that.”
“There isn’t, but…well, you just have to have a middle name.”
“Hmm…well, my dad actually has two. Does that make up for me not having one?”

Some people, even those who have known me for a while, get a little flustered from time to time and end up calling me Paul instead of Jon.
And of course there’s the whole “French” thing.
No, I’m not French, and no, it’s not pronounced with a “Z” sound at the beginning, jacquesass.
In high school many people referred to me as “JP.”
Come on, I’m not that guy. Sure, some people go by their initials, and it suits them, but do I really strike anyone as being a JP? I’m just not an “initials” sort of person.
Of course, one of the biggest annoyances I’ve had with my name is the fact that people will often flatly refuse to refer to me by the name I choose to be called, which is just plain “Jon.”
Some people insist on calling me Jon-Paul, many with the French pronunciation on it, and they will persist no matter how much I tell them that I do not want to be called that.
The strange thing is that when I was growing up there was another kid with almost the exact same name as mine – even the same last name - who lived maybe ten miles away. I used to get his mail (and vice versa). Of course, his name did have an “H,” but even so, it was odd.
Then in high school there was another kid with the same name (different last name) a couple of grades behind me.
I used to be amused by the fact that when they’d print the honor roll they favored the spelling of my name, leaving the “H” out of his.
After so many years I have gotten sort of beaten down and have come to just accept the various hassles that follow from having a slightly unconventional name, though, sometimes I do still wish that my mom had just gone with plain old “Jonathan,” as she’d been thinking, but really, what’s in a name anyway?
There’s a woman at work who everyone calls “Evergreen,” though apparently that’s not her real name, but rather the name she chose for herself.
(Sure, she can get people to call her what she wants, and yet there are still people who refuse to call me Jon…)
I don’t know what her “real” name is, and since that isn’t it I don’t feel that I’m violating my usual policy of not using people’s real names on Threshold when I don’t actually know the person.
I just have to wonder what would make her choose a name like that (thought I don’t wonder enough to actually go up and ask her). I mean, if your parents didn’t screw you over and give you some weird-ass name that people will make fun of, why would you choose to call yourself something that people will make fun of?
And while she was at it, why didn’t she go a little more esoteric? I mean, she could have gone with “Coniferous,” or “Pinophyta.” Either of those would have been much cooler.
Hmm…you know what? I’ve just decided that if I ever have a daughter I’m going to be a total bastard and name her Deciduous.
That would serve as a nice counterpoint to my plans for naming my son, if I were to have one, Cap’n Crunch.
It’s probably a damn good thing that there’s virtually no chance of me actually breeding…