> I had a friend in college who went by Sam. Everyone made the natural assumption that it was short for Samuel. One night while we were talking, he confided that his name was actually Samivar. (--don't ask, I don't know.)
> A couple days later, in class, I openly called him Samivar. Apparently, it wasn't something that he wanted publicly known. He didn't exactly appreciate it.
>
> Tra "If you're out there Sam, I'm sorry. °_¸º" nio

Well, it might be disconcerting to him because his name sounds like Samovar. Those are those large Russian coffee and teapots which look like metal urns or vases, embossed with intricate designs. So if your name happened to be "teapot", you might be embarrassed, too.

Wolf "Hey, didn't I have a dream a while ago about someone busy trading some large embossed metal thingies? Samovars, anyone? :-)" spirit