Bal What?!!

I always get lots of comments about the difficulty of my last name.

In Arabic, my last name consists of only of six letters. Its quiet easy to pronounce and is well known.

In English, it’s a nightmare to pronounce to most westerners or non Arabs. Balfaqaih.

I had people pronouncing it in many different ways. Bulfake. Balfeih. Balfuky. And as you can imagine, it just goes downhill from there.

It never really mattered to me. While living in the west, people were never able to say my first name properly. I mean what’s difficult in Jeehan?!! But then, you should already know what I think of those people.

Any way, today I got a call from a lady asking for a media interview. She started the conversation with “Hello, I’m sorry I can’t pronounce your last name Ms?”. I told her to relax and call me with my first name. I later on asked her to send me an email about the issue and I’ll get back to her.

I got the email.

Her last name is: Hadjieleftheriou

*(&)*^%$^%@#$%%^
And she is complaining about MY family name??