38 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
I'm full german with a name that ends in -ski. In the Ruhr area, no one even asked. It's normal here.
I once moved away for a while to find a job elsewhere and everyone asked me where I came from and what my nationality was. For the first time in my life, while living in northern germany, I experienced some kind of 'racism'.
One time I wanted to make a doctors appointment and they flat out told me after telling my name that they're full for the next year. Accidentally called the same place again a few days later because no one took me in, I was beat, I didn't say my name (really by that point I was just asking whether they take new patients or not) and they told me sure, they take new people. I was perplexed. Didn't go in the end. Maybe it was just a bad day for that person on the other end the first time, but it struck me weird.
I didn't get a job, 'recently moved here' and my surname seemed to be the issue. I moved back to NRW, got five interviews over the span of two weeks.
As a kid people always made jokes like 'polish people steal, hahaha, if something went missing she has it' literally no one in my family or me can speak Polish or is from Poland. Not my grandparents from either side, not my parents from either side, and they're both different -ski's.
Comment by Eka-Tantal at 19/07/2021 at 07:52 UTC
24 upvotes, 0 direct replies
In 2018, we had a Polish company as customers. They send some experts over to help us start the production (even though we are quite capable of doing so ourselves). When they arrived, they were quite happy to speak Polish to my colleagues with Polish surnames, only to find out that none of them actually spoke the language, and in some cases wasn’t even aware they had a Polish surname at all.
Comment by alderhill at 23/07/2023 at 00:11 UTC*
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Due to Germany’s eastern border fluctuations over the centuries, it should not a be a surprise that “Slavic” (I get that you’re fully German) names exist here.
I have a name that looks like it could be German, but isn’t, nor do I have any German ancestry (foreigner here). But I am frequently told by people who see it “ah, but that’s a German name!”. No it isn’t. Also, there’s always the look of ”what the häääh?!” for people who see my name (at work) then when they speak to me, realize I am not in fact a local. I guess it has some advantage.
(Sorry for the necropost —- was searching something and just realized this is post is a couple years old!)