The umlaut over the second "a" in my name "Shaän" is not an accident or a clever play on Switzerland and the Germanic language. After 40 years of thinking my mother had spelled my name as "Shaan" but pronounced like "Shawn" was due to some residual anesthesia side effect, she told me the real story or as she believes it to be. As an added bonus I also found out another shocking detail, I was not Irish-Russian ancestry but actually Irish-Danish.
Having endured the emotional hardship of 40 long years of people assuming I spelled my name wrong and them kindly correcting it for me or having people call me "shan" like my boss I can finally retort with something better than "well, my mom was heavily sedated when asked how to spell my name". I can now say "hey, I have an umlaut above the second a which means the sound is different than the vowel is normally pronounced".
So perhaps I will now write my name as "Shaän" (Shaãn for the Brazilians)
Well just a few hours until a journey to Switzerland begins and routes me by air through Washington DC and Brussels Belgium before arriving in Bern Switzerland. I will be spending the weekend in Interlaken then in Neuchâtel the following week.
Haben Sie vielen Dank
-Shaän
KMZ file for Google Earth of my June 21st 2007 Trip Route from Salt Lake City Utah USA to Interlaken Switzerland. Download june_21_2007_travel.kmz
