What’s in a name?

An article by Don Quixote

“What’s in a name?
That which we call a rose
by any other word
would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would,
were he not Romeo call’d,
retain that dear perfection
which he owes without that title.”

– Romeo and Juliet

People have always had a problem with my last night: Soulliere. They cannot spell it nor can they pronounce it. So-lar-re? Soul-lie-re? Smmasdfjlaska?

I could always tell when a teacher or professor got to my name on the roll call. I could see their brows furrow, small droplets of sweat starting to form around their temples. They look of dread and terror. The classic example would be my freshmen year at Great Lakes, when the look came over Ron Klepal’s face.

“Umm, how do you pronounce that?”
“Bob.”

When ever I order pizza, or anything else for delivery, the routine is the same.

“Can I have your name sir?”
“Bob Soulliere”
“Umm, how do you spell that?”
“If it would be easier, you can just put it under Bob.”
“Yeah, that would be great.”

Thankfully my parents were kind and gave me a first name like Bob (though my given name is Robert), so if all else fails, I’ve always had that to fall back on. Well, that was until today.

When I’m not working at the newspaper, blogging, working at the University, board game, or whatever else it is that I do with my time, I’ve some how managed to get the job of writing some informational pieces for the campus on changes in Campus Computing. My first job was to explain to students what our new campus gateway (Perfigo) was all about. Well my boss, and her boss loved it and wanted to make sure that it got into “The Paw Print” our highly read college newspaper.

Monday the issue came out, and there was my story. Now the first thing I always check is for misspellings of my last night. Nope, it was perfect:

“What the !@#%” : Connecting your computer to the USF network
By Bill Soulliere

Yeah, who knew that I had a pen name? Perhaps it was my subtle nod to another great author such as myself, Bill Shakespeare and no one got the joke.

Honestly, how can you screw up the name Bob? Two letters, that’s all you have to know. Just two B’s and an o. That’s it!

So now in a frenzy, I have to totally redo my site, no longer is it going to be www.ifoundbob.com, now I have to get a new domain www.ifoundbill.com. Then there are all the email lists, driver’s license has to be changed, bills, the list goes on and on. So if you don’t see me for a while, you know where I am at.

As always,
Bill Soulliere

P.S. Speaking of Romeo, Michelle and I were watching Romeo must die years ago, when one of my infamous lines reared it’s ugly head (it still haunts me to this day). “What I don’t get is why do they call this movie Romeo must die, his name isn’t even Rome…. (that’s when it kicked in that it was a Romeo and Juliet story) ooooooooohh. Never mind.