No more Mr. Robert

Marble Floor detail - Grand Mosque

Names are a funny thing. We get attached to them. As a boy, I was always Rob to my family, Robert if I was in my mother’s doghouse. Once I got to High School I decided I wanted to be called Bob and so it was. In North America, I must tell you I have a number of nicknames, but I’m generally known as Bob, a universally accepted, timeworn contraction of Robert. Or so I thought.

I may have mentioned this before but in the UAE you are nothing without a local cell phone number. But still, whenever you register for something, or even cancel something, you need to provide a copy of your passport. Then they ask you for your name and I tell them ‘Bob’

“Bob? Where does it say that on your passport?”

’Nowhere. It’s a short form for Robert.’

“Why? It doesn’t make sense Mr Robert.” Rob, they can see, but Bob is a step too far.

Which brings up the other quirk with names; they call you by your title with your first name only.

Emirates Palace at night

Actually though, they ask you for your ‘good name’. This it turns out is polite, Indian English for your first, I stopped calling it Christian, name – all roads lead back to Mr Robert.

After much argument, I managed to get my company to print my business cards as Bob Laws, but they insisted that ‘robert.laws@emiraje.ae’ be my e-mail address.

So, in UAE I was always Mr Robert. I got over it but it makes me smile in Calgary when I give my name as Bob, no questions asked.

I explained my nomenclature troubles to my Emirati colleagues at work: ‘Do locals not use nicknames?’

“Oh yes, but not in any official capacity. We only use those names between friends.”

Most commonly, Emiratis take their father or son’s name and append ‘Bu’ (boo) as a prefix. Hence, Khalid might be known as BuHussein, after his father, particularly among his older friends and relatives. One colleague told me he likes to be known after his cousin – they were inseparable as children and he was badly shaken by his passing when they were teenagers.

For me, I’d be BuFrank (after my father) or BuNathan (after my son).

Starbucks in Ibn Battuta Mall

Talking of epithets, Carol and I often went shopping in the Malls. Store personnel were always polite, inviting us in with a Sir or Ma’m, but if we entered a store together, we’d elicit the composite welcome: ‘Hello Mamsir’. The first time I heard it, I thought it was an unintentional slurring of the two words, but no, I soon realized it was everywhere and definitely one word. Most of the retail clerks/shop assistants are Filipinas and it turns out that, in addition to couples, ‘mamsir’ is used in the Philippines as a greeting for someone when you’re not sure whether they’re male or female.

I’m not sure what that says about us. But it makes me think – what’s in a name!

Smoke on the Corniche, Abu Dhabi - National Day