Life as Yoda

In the wake of the dreaded Facebook Incident, which ended yesterday after they relented and allowed her to register, Hiroko Yoda writes about life as Yoda:

I'm a Japanese woman, and my last name really is Yoda. It's a common family name in Japan. "Yoda" the Jedi Master is actually pronounced with a long "o" in Japanese, which makes it different-sounding enough that the connection only becomes apparent when you write out my name in English letters instead of kanji characters. So even though I of course saw the films here in Japan, I never made a connection between the character Yoda and my own name.

But whenever I leave Japan, it's a different story. People think I changed my name because I'm a crazy Star Wars fan, or that I'm just kidding around. Even people who know I'm not making it up are always giving me Yoda trinkets and keychains and figures, so I had this little shrine to him going on for a while. Maybe because I'm female, or because I look foreign, people don't usually make a lot of comments directly to me. But Matt gets stuff all the time. Whenever he has to tell my name to an airline ticket agent or a hotel receptionist or something, it's totally common to get a response like "Ha-ha-ha! That's a good one, sir! Anyway, what's her real name?" Once he was even asked semi-seriously "Is her first name, then, 'Master'?" And then there was this latest incident with Facebook. I tried signing up like ten times, and it always rejected my name. Finally we figured out that a filter was blocking "Yoda" because it thought I was trying to register a fictional name! They finally let me sign up, but it took several days and a lot of emails.

Ironically, since Matt's last name is Alt, he gets his own share of funny business from people who think he's using an Internet handle name in real life ("is your middle name ESC? Are you going to name your kid 'Tab'?") But Yoda sounds even more over the top in English, so it can be a lot harder to convince people that my name really is real.

So we do occasionally have a hard time, but on the other hand, it's nice to have a short and memorable name because people easily remember us. :) "Alt and Yoda" isn't an easy combination to forget. At least we hope so.

By the way, I also named my dog Luke. So his full name is Luke Yoda! (He is so old right now, he sort of does act like a real Jedi.)

Comments

[Marxy]

alt.fan.yoda

[Roger]

That is a trademarked image that you are using above and I am SO telling Lucasfilm on you.

[Thomas]

At least the comments you two get are entirely innocent (if somewhat clueless). My last name sounds like a certain Middle Eastern last name, and if people make a reading mistake closely ressembles another Middle Eastern name (it's actually of German origin).
In these post-911 times this has gotten me my fair share of suspicious/disapproving looks, even after spelling out/explaining my name (and then some people still get it wrong...). Apparently because of "white guy + 'muslim' name = potential terrorist". People just don't think when it comes to this kind of thing, and sometimes it's just hurting.

[Ike]

In the States, I'm usually associated with Dwight Eisenhower or...Ike Turner *_*;

But it is also a character in the Fire Emblem series, and it is also that baby's name in South Park.

In Japan, it was the name of a consumer loan company, which later renamed itself to something hilarious like "Dic".

So is it a common name or not? Hard to tell.

[Gilles Poitras]

That should be MISTRESS YODA!

[ismail cakir]

same as my story, my name is ismail and i cant take mail user from various mail providers like hotmail. Coz it has a reserved word "mail" in it. how can i write ismail without mail :D

[Lady Misty]

I know of a man who's last name is Bytheway. And one day at the airport the clerk asked him if he was going to name his son Owen.

I'm not kidding about his last name. You can look him up on Amazon. John Bytheway.

In a class the teacher asked us to make a family. One of the boys "married" a woman named 'Computer' and named one of the children 'Delete'. The teacher used his family in the lesson and in the lesson poor Delete gets run over by a car and gets deleted from exsistates.

[Abel Goddard]

I always get, Where's Cain? Or, Are you ready and willing? My response is, I'm 33 years old, I've only heard that question about 900,000 times, thanks for being original.

[Darth Brooks]

I can no longer be googled because I share a name with a recent school-shooting mass-murderer. WTF

[Jazmynn]

I think the last name is nice.

I've heard of a gentleman whose actuall last name was (french pronoiciation) (Jauhn Boocraa) In english it looks like John Buttcrak. No joke, not kidding, it was a service call, but had the gentle man pronounce his own w/o trying to tackle it alone.

My ownh family name is a kicker, it gets it's share of mispronouciations and twists.

Ms Yoda, be proud of your name and don't change it, it's awesome, lil' green muppet or not. YOUR family are the originals.

[Richard Vanbergen]

Yoda is an awesome name. If you don't want it can I have it?

My girlfriend had a Friend Joe Suzuki (Joe is what he calls himself in English) which sounds like a hero from an action movie.

There was a guy in my college when I was younger called "Ben Dover" which being in secondary school quickly got changed into "Bend Over".

To be honest I manipulate most people names for a joke, nothing nasty just little private jokes between friends. Girl friends name is Mai Takeyama, and with Mai sounding like "my" in English we play with that a lot.

The Japanese seem to think my name is funny (Vanbergen) but I can't figure out why. Any ideas?

[nova girl]

my namee is nova and when i worked at a rent a car place in the eighties, people would say I want the car that wil go, and that is you. IN SPANISH NOVA MEAN 'DONT GO' ..thank God they dont make Chevy Nova's anymore..

[Becky]

The Star Wars character Yoda is pronounced with a long "o" in English as well. How do pronounce it in Japanese?

[MattAlt]

Sorry I missed your comment. The SW character "Yoda" is pronounced with a long "o" vowel in Japanese: ようだ。The common Japanese family name is pronounced with a more clipped よだ。