What's in a Name? - Oldie but Goodie

I'd started a bunch of posts in the early days here, meaning to flesh them out later;  some are still worth sharing.  Below are my (now fleshed out) early reflections on and experiences with names.
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It's been almost a month since I got here, and there's been a mind-boggling array of new names to learn.  Not unexpected, but what I hadn't initially considered was just how many of these new and at times hard-to-remember names would be for folks from my own company!

Even more entertaining, is what autocorrect on my phone changes these names to when I first enter them - some of these are truly surreal.  (Autocorrect in parentheses):

Ashish (hashish), Sukhmeet (summer), Vishal (visual), Prasant (peasant), Harshit (harshly), Puneet (my next), Abhik, Sanjay (sandy), Chintan (Chinese), Emira (empire), Joydeep (hotter), Manoj (man on), Sameep (sleep), Jatinder (marinated), Jasryn (has run), Sunil, Akhil, Amit (Amor), Gyan (than), Ishant (insane), Ilesha (Illeana), Tarima (trauma).

We also have the less hard to learn Vladimir, Sven, and Cyrille, and the downright trivial Rod, Chris, Michael, Jacob, Sophia, Sharon, Hazel, Freddie, Claire, Clare, Jackson, Mark, George, and John (no Paul or Ringo, though).

On the client side, not unexpectedly, it gets even more challenging.  First, I had to learn the polite forms of address: Encik  (pronounced "en-chik" and abbreviated as En.) for "mister",  “Cik” (pronounced "chik") for “Miss”, and “Paun” (pronounced "pon") written as ”Pn.” for short, for “Mrs.”  We were told that for women, to err on the side of their being married, and a co-worker innocently observed that “a married Cik becomes a Paun”.

So, the technicalities of polite address out of the way, time to figure out the names, as most people have multiple names listed in their email address, so it’s not obvious how to pick out the correct first name. At our initial team-building event I had asked a client, and she said that you just have to ask which name someone prefers to use.  [Subsequently I've noticed that it's quite common, when addressing someone you don't know, to use the initial name they have listed, when in fact they go by the second;  seems not to be a big deal - folks just correct you in subsequent emails or in conversation].

So ok, then to remember them all, which to me are exotic and melodious, with all the Zs and Qs:  Iskandar ("Isk"), Azhan, Azizul, Nazrul, Armynuddin ("Army"), Jihaan, Hariri, Hasfarin, Shafiq and Syafiq ("Shaf"), Norbaizura ("Bai"), Azimah, M’Afifi, Gayathuri, Khairul, Gayathiri, Mustaquim, Nurul, Thaquifah, Nurshahida ("Shahida"), Azlan, Saiful, Hamerulnizam ("Hamerul"), Norianti, Norzanah, Norfaizal, Zainul, Azura, Aini, Faliq, Dayang, Suhaimi, Zeara, Azim, Aizat, Roziana, Nooridzwan ("Wan"), Rozaidy, Azizan, Nabihan, Farah, Sharveen, Kavita;  

Then, with gratitude in my heart, there’s the more straightforward Jannah, and the downright familiar Joanna ("Jo"), Nik, Melissa ("Mel"), Emilia ("Emi"), and Lydia. 

The challenge is further exacerbated by the fact that when one first meets, folks tend to say their name quickly and not terribly loudly, so it’s a big challenge trying to parse it, much less remember.  

[Subsequent note - as with everything, it got easier with time, and I learned to ask folks to spell their name for me if we met in person without my having a visual reference (as in a previous email, for example).  Also - its extremely common to use nicknames, even in formal emails, which tend to be shortened versions of the sometimes long names.  In fact, I was told many times that my name sounds Malaysian, as many names ending in "ina" get shortened to that nickname.]