Frequently asked questions about my name

Hi, my name is Evan Dodds. People seem to have an inordinate amount of difficulty with my name so I have put together this helpful primer. It seems kind of silly to me. It's only 9 letters long. Total.

Let's break it down:

Evan. That's E (eee) V (veeA (eh?N (enn). It's pronounced like "eh-vin". It's not "even", "yvonne", "ev-onn" or any of the other strange variations people seem to want to say or spell. I find this all particularly strange because although I am one of the few people I've met my age or older named Evan, there have been TONS of little kids named Evan in the last 20 years. It's actually become so common that I am no longer astonished to find keychains with my name from time to time, and I don't always perk up when some young mother shouts "get back over here Evan" as a rambunctious red-haired little boy goes running past me, etc.

Dodds. That's D (dee) O  (ohD  (deeD  (deeS (ess). It's prounced just like it looks. Not a single "B" (bee) in that name, so it can't possibly be "Dobbs". And in case there's any confusion, it's not missing an apostrophe, so it's not just "Dodd".

Bonus tip: If you want to refer to something of mine as a possessive and you want to also specify which (of the many possible) people named Evan you mean, you will want to refer to it as "Evan Dodds' <whatever>". This is because although some references consider a proper noun ending in "s" as a singular, I consider myself part of a plural family group -- the Dodds Family -- meaning it should follow the plural form of s-apostrophe. Here's an example showing both proper uses and emphasizing the use of the "s":

That Evan Dodds sure has a nice car. Evan Dodds' car is very nice. :)