Goodbye my silly name

Caution : This silly post is not just for fun...

Two years ago when I prepared the documents for graduate school admission, I need to made a name in korean language. The easiest way is just translate your real name into korean and you will get your korean name. But I have a problem coz I have very long name and that's not common here. So I decided to only use my first name which has 6 characters and without consonant ending (sound similar with korean name). At that time, I totaly blind with hangeul (Korean character), I had no time to learn how to write in hangeul just for that purpose and I quite not sure if I would be accepted.
That was leading me to make a silly but embarrassing mistake. due to the deadline was pretty close and I was still a worker also, I completed the admission documents without thoroughly checking the contents. I just paid attention to major things and ignored the rest of it including that korean name.
What I did was typing my first name to one of online translation engine, the trustworthy one, the one that I used for everyday translation but not korean translation.

I typed in ..... I was pretty sure I typed the correct name (how can I made a mistake, that what I thought all the time) and the translation came up...I copied and pasted to the admission documents...and everything was done. I had many worried but not that name, so I forgot about that.

Later on, I was accepted so I started to learn those strange characters by my self. I realized then I made a mistake...my Korean name was different with my first name, one vocal letter was wrong. I tried to type again but it gave me different result...that was correct. I wondered why I got wrong name before, that just 6 letters. But, I could not do anything at that time, again I had many worried in my mind, so I forgot about that.

I came here, I made my student id card, and that name also appeared there. That student id card also my debit card so I used it a lot for transaction. I knew my name was wrong but I had no will to change it. I didn't find that important. But I often got strange response from local people expecially when I used it for paying taxi bill or do some grocery. Some of them stared at my card and read my name loudly, '야하나?' and I just answer, 'yes.' I had no bad feeling about that.

Then, one of my friend in undergraduate school who is fluent in Korean had a chance to know my korean name. I asked my friend to pay the bill at coffee shop one day. That friend gave the same expression with most of korean people and started to laugh.
"Why are you laughing?" I asked my friend .
"Your korean name is wrong. Do you know about that?"
"Yeah, I did a mistake when I translated my name before. Why?" and then I got the reply, and maybe also the answer to the strange response from others.
"You know what is the meaning? That '야하' means erotic or vulgar." How could I know?
Since that time, I got teasted a lot due to that silly mistake.

Moreover, my labmates actually also felt strange with that name but they did not want to tell me coz I might be embarrassed. But someday, new lab mate came in and due to some work, that senior need to knew my identity. That person got strange response after knew my name and other new member who accidentally heard that asked me if I knew the meaning of that name. Before they could translate that for me, I answered them, " yes, I knew already."

Fortunatelly, I could manage to change that name into the correct one. Today, when I open the student portal website, I found out that the school already changed my name. So, from here I want to say goodbye to that silly name.