Reply #4: I had the weirdest experience overseas one summer. [View All]

[Igel]

I was on an exchange program to study a language.

My name was called on the first day of class, and some Brits in the class said that I was going to be a few days late. Instead I raised my hand and said 'here' (in the local language, of course). Afterwards they came up and wanted to know what I was about, because I certainly wasn't their friend from London. Not even from the same country. Their friend was held up and was going to start the program a few days late.

I finally showed them my passport to get them to shut up; their friend and I had the same first name and surname (and middle initial). A few days later I got to meet him. Same color hair, same color eyes, but hardly a doppelganger. He was fair skinned while I'm a bit ruddy. He was an inch shorter, 10 years my junior, and didn't have a moustache. He also dressed in all black and smoked clove cigarettes (fop!), but he did literature while I did linguistics so being a fop was de rigueur.

I felt it was necessary to actually give an example to show that rather than one person being in two places, two people could have the same name.

I imagine it would have been quite a bit easier to meet my name-double had I had an Arabic nomme de guerre 'first name' and a Qur'aan-based epithet for my surname; there are far more Anglo-Irish first names and surnames. Abu Hamza isn't his given name--Hamza was Muhammed's uncle and a 'valiant warrior', a Sahaabi, i.e., one of those that took in Muhammed and his early followers on the Hegira, and by saying he's Hamza's father he's saying that he admires or wants to emulate him. His 'last name' says he identifies with (desires to emulate) one of the group of early Muslims that went on the Hegira with Muhammed (i.e., a muhajir). Presumably they know the real name of the Egyptian; the guy in Iraq, well, he apparently has a second epithet and I'm not sure they have a good guess as to what his given name or what passes for his last name would be.