> > But my mother Mary Dawn > > objects when she hears someone call her Mary Don. > > Eh? "Dawn" versus "Don" is a different distinction. ... > (Pointing.) "AH. AW. AH. AW." > > "Are you saying those sounds are different?!" My name is spelled with a Y (Bryan), which is the less popular spelling, and I can usually tell the difference between the spoken names Bryan and Brian. Most people tend to stress the long I a little bit differently when they know my name is spelled with a Y. My brother Jason has two friends named Brian. If me and either one of them is in the same room, everyone uses Bryan and Brian to identify us, with very little confusion--as long as everyone there knows the both of us (otherwise they invariably pronounce my name Brian instead of Bryan). But if the two Brians are in the same room, everyone has to fall back to their last names to avoid confusion. This has become something of a joke--our favorite generic expression for each other is "guy", and one of the Brians claims he can tell the difference between guy-with-a-y and guy-with-an-i. Bryan