So that's what we are doing now... is it?
chain-mailing the #steemitnamechallenge...
yeah... sure thing, why not?!

The Steemit Name Challenge

I was nominated by the @reggaemuffin

It gets worse, of course this fad has rules, too! I don't believe in rules and for the most part, I like to think nobody else likes them either... but hey... it's part of the deal right?! So here they are:

The five commandments of the #steemitnamechallenge

1. Tell us in a post how you chose the current Steemit username you have. The story behind it.
2. Tell us your real name!
3. If you could change your current username, which name would you choose and why? If you have a possible usernames list, mention it!
4. Use the tag #steemitnamechallenge so that the creator of the challenge can track all the posts and check them out
5. Nominate 5 people for this challenge

Apparently there are no penalties or explicit consequences attached to not following these rules. And who's that mysterious "creator" of the challenge who's tracking all these posts, silently judging us all, anyways?! I tried proving his existence and failed, but let's not make this a discussion about faith or superstition...

where was I? Yeah right, my username... I'll try to make it short:

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I'm @fraenk

And, quite frankly, I love my steem accountname! So, I'll be absolutely frank with you and tell you everything there is to know about it.

I've been Frank throughout all my life. I've used a few different Franks to get around and had to reinvent a new Frank from time to time... but it's always been genuine Franks all along the way.

Frank, in case you didn't catch on to that, yet: That's my real name.

That sequence of letters that my parents assigned me with to avoid any later confusion. That thing which my statist overlords require me to identify by so that I may pay my mandatory fees for existing.

Now that that's out of the way, there's really just one question that we need to answer:

Where did that extra "e" come from?

The first few iterations of Frank were created and tested in Germany, near Frankfurt, but that's just a coincidence. I had no use for an added "e" back then. Just Frank was totally sufficient.

Some people seemed to enjoy adding a "y" to the end. I guess they thought that it sounded adorable. As a little person, that really wasn't too much to my liking. I was little, that's how humans are in the beginning, so you really didn't have to make me sound small... I fucking was small. Maybe some other small humans actually enjoy being admired for their small-ness, but that wasn't for me. I would have preferred if they had taken me serious... but I digress... this was about @fraenk and not about @franky!

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with @franky, I've never even looked if that user existed around here before just now.

Back to the topic: Things started changing when I ventured out into the world. I was fortunate enough to leave Germany behind for almost a decade and I had a chance to experience life in other parts of the globe, where people speak different languages.

Yes, you heard that right, it's a globe, it's a sphere, it's not flat!

I've been able to confirm that for myself and see some different corners all around it with my very own eyes! Wait what? Spheres have corners?! Anyways, I digress again... I said I wouldn't discuss faith here, we were talking about names and languages and we should probably stick to the established facts and treat it scientifically:

 

 

^{DRAMATIC PAUSE}

 

^{queue epic orchestral background music}

 

^{_{source: wikimedia}}

 

We were once one united mankind and we tried to reach the Heavens by building a really really really tall tower. But that mysterious Creator living up there didn't really seem too appreciate our ambitious goals. So he confounded our speech so that we could no longer understand each other, and then he scattered us all around the world!

I guess he likes keeping his privacy and prefers starting chain-mail-challenges?!

 

^{abruptly end orchestral background music}

 

But, I wanted to make this short, so, to make a completely different and excessively long story short: That's why we have the same names, like Frank, but they sound different in other languages.

That logic requires we had written names before we started saying them in a variety of tongues. Things may start to sound like contradicting each other... I'm sorry if this gets ever more confusing, but that's just how science works kids!

And so, as I lived in different corners of this vaguely rhombicosidodecahedron-shaped (<- that's science, look it up!) rock tumbling through space, where people spoke different languages, they started calling me "Frank" in English.

I've already established the fact, that writing came first, and if you write the English version of "Frank" in German, a beautiful little quirk called and "Umlaut" can be used to make the distinction. That's how "Frank" turns into "Fränk".

On the internet, using those Umlauts (damn, pluralising a German word by English conventions feels dumb) can be a tricky thing. By rule of convention then, the Umlaut can be replaced by it's phonetic origin: "ae".

That's that. That's why I call myself @fraenk on the internet!

Sounds fair and simple now doesn't it? But trust me, all that nonsense up there was totally essential to understand where my name comes from. Since most will probably not read that, though, let me say it one more time for the ADHD kids in the first row that didn't see anything other than the pictures:

TL;DR: My Name is Frank, I added an "e" to look cool!

Would I change my username if I could? Hell no! It's actually not easy to be "fraenk" on most platforms, that handle is a lot more popular than you would think and I should consider myself lucky that I came early enough to be the @fraenk on steem. On most other platforms I had to build some stupid punctuation signs around the "ae"-Umlaut-thing or find other creative solutions.

Story time's over... which finally brings me to the part that I feel most uncomfortable with... peer-pressuring some other innocent steemies to carry on the tradition of the #steemitnamechallenge, abide by those 5 dumb commandments and serve for the creator's pleasure.

I nominate and apologize in advance to:

1. @warrkin - because I actually want to know if that has a meaning!
2. @w0olf - such a quirky spelling, tell us why you're so 1337!
3. @ausbitbank - did you plan to start a financial institution here or what's that about?
4. @zneeke - I'm not even sure how I would pronounce that?! sneaky?
5. @okkiedot - Okkie Dot dot dot ... where's that coming from?

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P.S.: If you're interested in hearing the actual differences in the pronunciation of "Frank", here's a site I found while "researching" for this post: http://www.pronouncenames.com/search?name=frank

P.P.S.: After digging through some other challenge post I've finally discovered the mysterious creator's identity. It was @felobtc who started these shenanigans HERE.

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_{fraenk loves you!}