response 54 of 289:

Oct 22 04:15 UTC 2002

She was named Virginia Katherine McMath at birth.  After her parents divorced,
she lived for a while with her grandparents, where one of her cousins had
trouble pronouncing "Virginia" and took to calling her "Jinja".  Later, her
mother married Logan Rogers, and Ginger took her step-father's surname.  See
http://www.reelclassics.com/Actresses/Ginger/ginger-bio.htm for more
information.

So no, it wasn't the name given her by her parents, but neither was it a
'stage name.'

response 56 of 289:

Oct 22 04:50 UTC 2002

"Supna" is even worse to English ears.

Here's a web page by someone whose given name *is* Ginger, who gets
quite upset when people refuse to use it:
 http://pub141.ezboard.com/feverquestpeoplefrm7.showMessage?topicID=400.top
ic

I can understand her frustration.  I meet a significant number of people
who somehow short-circuit "Marcus" into "Mark", and insist on calling me
that.  "Mark" is a perfectly fine name, it's just not mine.  As if that
weren't bad enough, I know one person, of Indian extraction, who somehow
manages to further map this into "Mike".  That's far enough away from me
that it doesn't even begin to wake the "somebody said my name" nerve
when I hear it.

response 58 of 289:

Oct 22 13:14 UTC 2002

Re #56:  Not to mine.  But then I regularly talk to people who aren't
         white Anglo-Saxons, and I've traveled to foreign countries and
         actually -- I know this is amazing -- speak some foreign languages.
         So I guess I'm weird.

response 60 of 289:

Oct 22 14:00 UTC 2002

Thanks!

response 62 of 289:

Oct 22 15:20 UTC 2002

What's it about Ginger that bugs you so much, mynxcat? Seems like a lot of
furor over a name that's non-standard, certainly, but not outre.

response 64 of 289:

Oct 22 15:26 UTC 2002

        Plant names aren't uncommon at all for women.  Ginger, Ivy, Heather,
Rose, etc.

response 66 of 289:

Oct 22 19:00 UTC 2002

X-men ended too early.

response 68 of 289:

Oct 22 19:10 UTC 2002

That is really funny. I mean it isnt ingrained into my head as a cat's 
name and my cat's name *is* Ginger. heh. 

response 70 of 289:

Oct 22 19:28 UTC 2002

Nope, I never got that Ginger was strictly a cat's name, either. (Mittens,
on the other hand, or Socks. THOSE are strictly cat names. Well, maybe dog
names, too.) It's not a common female name, but who am I to talk? I'm *Twila*,
and I named my daughter *Rhiannon*... So I am used to a certain amount of
non-mainstream in my female names. What really bugs me is the whole raft of
non-standardly spelled and/or formerly male names that are very common
nowadays for girls. Ginger would seem old-fashioned in contrast. And quite
refreshing.

response 72 of 289:

Oct 22 21:49 UTC 2002

No, you misunderstood what I meant:  As a literate people, we often *see*
words rather than *hear* them.  So you say 'supna', we see/hear 'sapna',
and so we say 'sapna'.  (It's really neat watching someone who is already
a fluent speaker learn to read.  The phenomenon is not quite so obvious
in someone who's reading is at the same level as her spoken language.
It becomes obvious again when someone is reading well above her spoken
language skills.)

For example, I have to *work* at it to pronounce "draught" (/draft/)
correctly.

response 74 of 289:

Oct 22 22:16 UTC 2002

My last name, Brodbeck, is pronounced witha  long o.  I've given up on
trying to correct people on this because most people, no matter how many
times I tell them, insist on pronouncing it with a short 'o'.  My advice
to mynxcat is to get used to it, because you'll never get people to
remember.  It goes in one ear and out the other, because it's never a
priority for them unless you're a good friend.