"Dad, how come in every war movie there is always a man named Lieutenant?"

Chrisotpher

I always thought that Osama and Obama were the same people. Imagine my suprise when he ran for president! I was so confused until my parents explained to me they were different people. I was 13 at the time.

ooooooops

My father's name is Olav, and when I started reading I confused it with "oval" - and my Dad is not skinny, so it took me a few years to understand that I misspelled his name...

Slim Shady

When I Was in the thrid grade, There was a girl in my class known as "Sam", which I thought was a peculiar name for a girl, though I soon learned that it was a nkckname for "Samantha", a name I had not previously heard of. Also in my class was a girl named "Pam", whom I'd known since first grade. I decided that, since "Sam" was a nickname for "Samantha" (in the case of the new girl I'd met, at least, and presumably whenever a girl has the name "Sam"), "Pam" must be a nickname for "Pamantha". You should have seen the strange reactions the first time I referred to Pam as "Pamantha"!

Rachel

I used to believe that my mum's real name was actually mum, and whenever someone called her Janine I would always have to pipe up and correct them!

Jay

Up until recently I thought Dame Edna was really a woman - imagine my shock when I opened a magazine that had an interview with his wife!!
What's even more shocking is the fact that I'm 26!

M

i used to think that Ellen Degeneres was called Ellen the generous

Kelly

Both my parents coincidentally have the same last names, so when I was little, I always thought that you can only marry people with the same last names. i.e. your brothers/sisters...

flame

I used to get mad at some people who went to my church because they named their son Brad and my brother's name was Brad as well. Since my brother was older, I thought it was rude of them to use his name, because he had it first. I was truly convinced everyone in the world had a unique first name and that this was some kind of law.

joy

One Christmas, I wanted a certain doll more than anything else in the world. Every day I would tell my parents about it, or I would point it out in the store. After kindergarten one day, I came home to find a bunch of toys, including the doll, but they were all marked "ED." I cried in my room because the things I wanted were all going to some girl named Ed who I'd never even met before. I never told my mom because I wanted to be good, and Christmas morning I finally opened my presents. There were the doll and all of the other presents. My mom, amused at my surprise, proceeded to explain to me what initials were.

Emily

When I was little, I understood that a woman could choose to change her name when she got married. But, I thought she changed her FIRST name. I proudly announcned that when I got married, I was going to change my name to Monique.

married but still not named Monique

In our class were two girls called Emma who, for clarity, were known as "Emma" and "Em". I was a very proper little kid, and was highly offended when everyone started singing a song about their urinary functions - they were nice girls!
It went "A B C D E F G, H I J K
Em and Emma pee......."

Swanny

I was reading a letters page from a magazine one day and I noticed a lot of letters from a person called Name Witheld and I commented to my younger brother that this poor lady must have had a very tough life.

Anon

I used to believe that people with the same first names were somehow related. This was particularly true with famous people.

boopy

When I was young, my mom always used to say "I have to do some errands." I have a younger brother named Aaron. So I used to think we were going out to do some "Aarons" and always jealously wondered if we would ever do some "Sandras."

Anon

my mom's middle name is tina anne makela. when she was a kid she used to think her middle name was "and" and wrote that on all of her papers.

Anon

i used to think that if you had identical twins, you would give them the same first name.

of course, any identical twins i met were the exeption to that rule..

anastacia beeverhousen

I used to believe that all of my my Dad's job personalized his tape measure that he took to work. Little did I know that STANLEY was just the brand name.

Erin G

My name is Heather Louise and when I was younger I had never heard of an older woman named Heather, however I HAD known ALOT of old woman named Louise. I thought that when you got older you had to go by your middle name and that all the old women named Louise used to be young Heathers.

Heather McKinney

when i was young, i thought all people with the same name would grow up to look the same.

kim