> Also, an interesting side note the 'e' at the end of my last name Charneskie was added by my Grandfather when he was in school so he would remember the 'i' before 'e' rule on spelling tests. When my father, aunts, and uncle were born he filled out their birth cerificates with the 'e' at the end.
>
> OK, so I lied, it wasn't an interesting side note.
>
> Speed'mispelbaud'ball

Just for the record, I found it interesting, but not on the side.

I always like a good name-spelling story. My wife had some ancestors who came to the US from Germany on a ship with an English speaking crew. On the trip over, they became knows as "those Germans." On arrival at NY, a non-German-speaking imigration officer asked a member of the ships crew who those people were. The crewman replied, Oh, those are the Germans."
The imigration officer, who may have had chewing gum or something in his ears, wrote down "Jarman" as the family name. They still use it to this day.

There's more:
My family name was originally spelled Murrell, but my Great, great, great, grandfather, who was an abolitionist, had a terrible arguement with his father, a slave-holder, over slavery. He changed the spelling to Murrill, moved about a hundred miles to the west, and never saw his father again. We still spell it that way, and we still oppose slavery.
How"stubborn bunch"ard