My name is a prefix. It's Shayan by the way. It's pronounced exactly as it's written.

Mum is from the Caribbean. On an island near Venezuela and her people travel back and forth there a lot. But yeah, she never meets people with her name. It's pretty uncommon.

Now Mark on the other hand is annoyingly common. Not only as a first name, but as it's a homonym I have been known to butt into conversations just because I heard the sound Mark (as in "I really wish I got more marks on this test" "Wait, who called me?") or completely ignore people because I thought they were talking about schoolwork.

TY I'VE GOT MY EYE ON YOU!!!! <o>

Kodie- My name is more common in Latino cultures, and my mom is from Venezuela, so...

But it's cool that me ol' lady name is making a come back! YES!!!!! :D

Lydia is pretty uncommon name for your age group. I always thought it was cool, but a lot of people probably associated it as an "old lady" name when you were very young. I have a popular name for my age group (Kodie is not my real name), but being not the most popular (Jennifer), I didn't really suffer having anything like an overly-popular name, but still suffer something like a time limit of "freshness". Lydia is actually becoming more popular for little baby girls now, it is coming into vogue while people get tired of the Emmas and Emilys and Amelias and Olivias and Chloes, branching out into other, what's considered "dusty" names from "the attic," some parents these days seem to be in love with the old-fashioned charm plus it's still seen as a little off-beat, uncommon among their peers, though not altogether unheard of even in the interim.

Prepare yourself for some baby Lydias in the future, and for some purposes, your name will keep you more youthful in the image of others as they know other baby/young Lydias as well, whereas my name -- everyone can take a pretty good guess how old I am just from knowing my name. Nobody is naming their babies my name. I still think it's a good name, but it went out of style; Lydia is really starting to appeal to people more and more, so its association will sound a lot younger. As you appear to people, at least they will think your parents were fashion-forward, or that you may be at least 5 or 10 years younger than you are (I would call that an advantage at my age -- a few years older than you). Loving names has been one of my secret weird hobby my whole life. http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/

As far as evil sisters-in-law, I'm going to have to say Nancy or Mary; perhaps next time I do not get involved with the baby of the family, which seems to create a situation of the entitlement of interference, combined with a complete lack of seeing things from my perspective on the boy's part. If you want girls to think you are chickenshit, obey the wisdom of your older sisters all the time. Double plus ungood if your mother seems attached to you physically, and you have older sisters. They all know what you want, and you have no independent idea. I don't care what all their names are, as long as you are not the youngest boy.

That's enough out of you, Sauron.

pps I rarely meet other Lydias. It's always a bonding experience when I do. :)

AW!!! My family pronounces my name Lee-thee-ya... does that help? If not, then pronounce it Lid-dee-ya.

:)

ps I have a Swiss friend who pronounces it Lee-ja. That is acceptable too.

Lydia is my evil sister-in-laws name. It's like being named Sauron, to me.

Kara is that for me; extremely unpleasant ex-girlfriend experience.

You know what I wonder? It would be interesting to do a study on whether there is a statistically significant effect of names on different personality attributes and personal outcomes. Is the proportion of John Smiths in the prison population proportional to John Smiths in society? Or in various fields of study? Or annual income level?

Lydia is my evil sister-in-laws name. It's like being named Sauron, to me.

Lydia? That's my mother's name. High five!

And yes NOX is correct.

I'm pretty sure IRA=Irish Republican Army.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Republican_Army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Irish_Republican_Army

*gives LRA the initials-only username highfive*

What is that? LRA is my initials. My first name is Lydia.

^^^ You bastard, now I'm imagining Meyers getting off.

BTW, everytime I see LRA's username I think of the Real IRA.

It's kind of frightening to think Meyers' wet dream was published.

Lulz... Apparently she wrote the first book starting on about chapter nine, which was based it on a dream she'd had. The first few chapters were essentially filler to get the book to that point. And it's blatant use of author avatar, too.

ROFL.

Well, you CAN, but it's a much shorter story:

Bella: "you are so beautiful!"

Edward: "I can't love you, because I can't resist eating you."

Bella: "Love me anyway!"

Edward eats her.

Bella: [dying gasp] "Why?"

Edward: "Told you."

You can't do it right.

After reading Mark reads Twilight I almost want to rewrite Twilight and do it right.

For a loose definition of "art" in this case ;-)

It seems that life really does imitate art.

I'm guessing you ran around after him for two hours and didn't score?

I've never read the books, but I did watch New Moon, mainly because I fancied this cute guy who wanted to see it. I'll let you guess whether or not I got anything out of it (hint: it was a Twilight movie).

One of the things I liked about The Matrix Reloaded was the reveal at the end:

The Chosen One is just a TOOL of the oppressors. HA!

I must've missed this plot point through all the shit I was wading through while watching the sequels.

That is an awesome idea.

I loved the PS2 Game "Bard's Tale" for exactly this reason. The princess is being held captive. She needs a hero to come save her. So she tells every farmboy in the entire kingdom that they are the chosen one, destined to save her.

You come across their corpses all through the game.

But Cthulu help me, I can't read another goddam story about another chosen one who struggles to master his powers so that he may face the dark lord and save the world. NOT. ONE. MORE.

One of the things I liked about The Matrix Reloaded was the reveal at the end:

The Chosen One is just a TOOL of the oppressors. HA!

I find most epic fantasy to be pretty lame. The only genre of fiction I dislike more is urban fantasy. Oddly enough, most of my current circle of good friends are famous for writing in one or both of those genres.

But Cthulu help me, I can't read another goddam story about another chosen one who struggles to master his powers so that he may face the dark lord and save the world. NOT. ONE. MORE.

I have to say I've never read the Sword of Truth books, but the show (corny as it was) had epic, non-stop fanservice, superb fight choreography for a low budget deal, AND Bruce Spence. They even got W. Morgan Sheppard to do the voice of the Keeper of the Underworld.

I was kinda sad it was canceled.