The Name Game

Last night I attended my first conference reception, held at a swanky San Jose hotel. (Alas, not the one we're staying in). I could bore you to death with a load of techie small talk, but I probably would have understood more if I'd been talking to Martians.
I was "attacked" by an apparently drunk woman who couldn't understand how anyone in England could be called Fanny because of the seemingly hilarious connotation the word has. (No, I don't understand the relevance of this either). More interesting was a gentleman called Randall, who explained although he had grown up being called Randy, felt he had to change it back to his given name because English people kept laughing at him. Since Grumpy's boss has the same name, I've long got over that one. However, I did have a little more sympathy with this new Randy. His surname was Ness.