Return of Dr Strangename

Dr Strangename returned from San Francisco on Friday night, filled with the joys of all-expenses-paid taxi rides and Chinese dinners.

Why is your husband called Dr Strangename?

Because a) here, no one can spell it, and b) there, no one can pronounce it.

'Here' being America: there's a Z in Strangename (obviously), and I can never remember if it's a Zed or a Zee; by the time I've got it right, someone has already written it down wrong.

'There' being my rural hometown in England: the people prefer a surname that's been intermarrying in the neighbourhood for a few hundred years, and so, after a mere decade, my family still ask 'how's... how's... your feller?'. (In their defense, it took me a while to get it right, and two years ago I infamously spelt it wrong on our own doorbell.)

Although Dr Strangename claims his name is not at all strange back in his native Birmingham, it has tended towards creating various preconceptions about his nationality, religion, mother-tongue and skin colour. One of my former bosses in England once gave a confused Indonesian man an effusive greeting and tour of the facilities, under the impression that he was my exotic spouse, while my actual spouse waited politely in Reception reading the sports section. 

Should you ever be called to fetch Dr Strangename from Reception,  it may help to know that the genetic combination of Turkish, English and Irish ancestry has resulted in him looking inexplicably like a pre-Hare Krishna George Harrison. My own genetic combination of Anglo, Saxon and Farmer has resulted in me looking like a round-faced milkmaid type almost guaranteed to go sharply downhill after thirty. We are hoping my genes are the recessive type.

.

.