Must not laugh at foreign names

We read:

"Chief Magistrate Ian Gray says any offence caused to a man who complained his 19 letter Greek surname was mocked was "sincerely regretted".

Fifty-year-old Spiros Chryssanthakopoulos complained he had been humiliated and racially vilified after a magistrate, clerk and police prosecutor laughed while discussing his name.

Mr Chryssanthakopoulos discovered the comments after he requested a court transcript and recording of a proceeding involving a traffic infringement notice which he thought was not proceeding and did not attend.

Mr Chryssanthakopoulos has written to Mr Gray complaining that at one point a man can be heard on the recording making the comment "I can't pronounce that sh--". Its not clear on the recording who made the comment.

But the clerk can be heard laughing while struggling to pronounce Mr Chryssanthakopoulos's name, before magistrate Jack Vandersteen says: "No wonder we can't find him ... he would have been a hard name to recite 25 times. There's 19 letters in it."

Mr Chryssanthakopoulos complained to Chief Magistrate Ian Gray, but has gone public because he is concerned the matter has been swept under the carpet. "I feel humiliated, I feel like the court and police are ganging up on me. The ticket, the racial vilification, the bungles, the vindictiveness, it's all been a nightmare," Mr Chryssanthakopoulos said yesterday.

Source

I knew an Australian-born Greek guy once whose surname was originally "Drakakis". Early on, he changed it to "Drake". He said that "Drakakis" sounded like something you stood in and couldn't get off your shoe. He was wiser than the guy above.

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).