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Ive been hosting since last June, and until yesterday, I never had a guest sign a name differently in their messages from the name that is on their account. And then yesterday, I received two inquiries that both had this name issue. My initial reaction is “red flag,” but one of the people is foreign, (I’m in the US and he’s from China) and says that the name on the account is the name on his passport. Didn’t mention what the other name was about (a nickname perhaps? But it was a completely different name, as was the other guest who is from the US). Both of the accounts were verified by email and Facebook at least, but these still read as red flags to me, so I declined both bookings.
My question for you guys: have any of you experienced this with inquiries/guests? How did you respond to your inquiry?
I have had this happen and asked the person doing the actual inquiry to open their own account and go through the full verification process (including a government issued ID) as it is against Airs terms to accept a booking through a third party guest. A couple of times, they did what I asked. Most of the time, I never hear back from the potential guest.
Virtually all of our Chinese guests have chosen an Anglo name to use when they are traveling in the West. This is because Chinese names are unpronounceable to Westerners. Sometimes I’m bemused at the names they choose. We had one young guest who went by the name Vivian. I asked her why she chose Vivian. She said that she believed it was a common name in the U.S. I told her only for the over seventy crowd. We’ve had several young Chinese guests who use the name Cyrus. I think it’s a nice name, but I’ve only met one or two Americans with the name Cyrus.
I had am American guest who identified with one name when booking, then changed. When I queried it she said she had used her legal name for booking, CC use etc, but once the booking was in place she reverted to her middle name which is what she “goes by”. I had thought there were two people after booking! All fine once I asked!
I don’t know, I teach a lot of elementary school classes as a sub and the name Vivian is making a comeback! I have seena few Cyrus’s as well.
But talk about unpronounceable! Why o why do parents give their children fancy names that cannot be said properly on the first try.? I don’t mean ethnic names. I mean names where parents use fancy spellings for regular old names. Or just made up stupid names. It’s a real trend in the last five years. I don’t think it’s fair to the kids. I often see them get frustrated when their crazy name is pronounced incorrectly… and if it is frustrating them in K, imagine that it will only get worse as they go through their school years.
I’m with you on that one. My father got irritated whenever he heard of people giving their children “creative” names or spelling common names uncommonly. This was the sixties so he had plenty of ammunition for his ire. He would always say that the French had it right that the government had to approve children’s names. I’m afraid I’ve inherited his views in that one area. I used to have a coworker named Kymberli. I always used to josh her about her parents’ issues with vowels.
What they don’t realize also is that the TRENDY names will later come to define a generation. The Ethels and Herbs were the trends of their day and now only old people have those names (no offense to the younger Ethels and Herbs who may be reading.) How many baby girls now are named Brittany? Tiffany? NONE… nearly none right…?? Yet those were the rage in the 80s and 90s. How many girls are named Barbara? Well only if you were born in 50s or early 60s.
I strove to give my sons CLASSIC names without being boring. As I was expecting twins, we didn’t name them until we saw their faces. Fortunately, we named correctly.
I suspect that there are some names that will never be popular in our lifetimes. Such as Phyllis, Mavis, Myrtle, Joan, Gertrude, Joyce etc. (And like @konacoconutz, I apologise to anyone who has those names).
But there are some lovely traditional names that need to be revived like Ada, Martha and Elena for example.
My name shrieks ‘born in the 1950s!’
I think it’s funny that kids-of-hippies called their kids ‘hippie names’ like Autumn, Sky and Starburst. What’s wrong with good old Mary, Caroline, Rose, Charlotte, Sophia, Anna …
@jaquo My OB/GYN’s name is Jacqueline. We named our daughter Nina. After she was born, my doctor said, "On behalf of your daughter, I thank you for giving her an easy name. Do you have any idea how hard it is for a kindergartener to have to write “Jacqueline’?!”
Readily obscure. Chinese names and words can vary tremendously even thought they have the same pronunciation, it all depends on with what character it is written. But I can tell the first thing that comes to my mind for Guozhu are the characters that mean ‘Country/Nation Lord’
My given name was not Dusty. Dusty is a nickname I stole from a pack bag at girl scout camp and when I got divorced I had my first and last name changed in the decree. I couldn’t be happier.
I never changed my name when I got married. Because I had just got a new passport AND because I didn’t like his name, AND because I knew in my heart it wouldn’t last. Made the divorce all that much easier.
This is fairly common practice. Chinese people take on Western, ie, English names when going abroad. It sometimes has a discernible link to their Chinese name – so Chang Shing could become say Charlie Sheen/* – but often has no correlation.
You’d wish you could get yourself a different name, of your own choice, as a grown-up before you’re flying abroad!
