Name difficulties

It seems to be difficult to determine your own name and your own but someone else’s name seems to be a common issue here in Finland if you have a name preceding your “first” name, the name you are called by.

In my case there is no way to confuse the names as Mona is my first name, but this friend of mine I already told you about earlier with the same name as her rich cousin, well this time she had trouble with a doctor. Let’s just presume her name is Sandra Jane Doe to clarify what I mean in this case.

Being called on to the doctor by her “first” but wrong followed family name (Sandra Doe) she presented herself by her right name (Jane Doe) followed by her family name and the doctor being literate, answered by that your name is Sandra Doe! Jane explained that she has a cousin with the same name and as she is called Jane and not Sandra, but that the name is first in her name but not her “first” name. Well, this doctor got really annoyed about her having the wrong name and explained that in their computer system you are called what you are called and that is always the FIRST name.

Anyway, she thought it was not an issue of great importance to pursue to the bitter end and got down to the business she was seeing the doctor for. By the time they had got to the part when the doctor begins to fill in the prescription for her, and quite unusually for health care in Finland, the prescription was not printed out but filled in by hand, fist the wrong first name appeared on the form, and with a short reflection on behalf of the doctor, it was changed into the correct Jane Doe instead of Sandra Doe but the making of a mistake was never spoken out a loud.