That's my name!

I've got an unusual name for an American, the kind of name people mispronounce 70% of the time when they first meet me, the kind of name that I've had to grow accustomed to correcting constantly. It was from my mother's side of the family, and I've always stuck up for it when people say, "but it sounds ALMOST like this other name, can't I just call you that instead?"

no, it's my name, and I like it.

Needless to say, it got pretty old to be arguing about my name all the time, so I was delighted when I came here and found that people had NO problem with it. Everyone here adds an accent where I never had one, but the pronounciation is no problem. They remember it, they use it, and last week I even saw it scrawled on the bottom of a lap lane I'd never used before in Laugardalslaug. If you look my name up in the phone book or Þjóðskrá (national registry) there are dozens of us. It's even the name of a major Finnish communications company, so I see it on cellphone coverage maps, on hits to my blog, and photos of Finnish phone booths.

Introducing myself in the US usually resulted in questions about where the odd name came from. Here, it's a surprised "that's an Icelandic name!" Yep, and it's also mine.

Ship sighting: Tomorrow this cute lil cruise ship named Funchal is coming just for the day, and according to this ship history website, she'll be carrying about 400 British holiday-makers. That's a lot of ladies in the Laugardalslaug locker room talking about bobbly tights.