Pronunciation of Al's name...

[The Avatar]

Aye Harry, quite right.

'Cheek biter'.  It has been suggested that my ancestor received the name in response to his fencing skills.. cutting the cheek of his opponents.

After further research, I've also found that there is a small village in southern Germany, Beiswang.

And just so everyone knows, my family pronounces the name
 (buy-zwung-er)

[Luke]

I'm a very close personal friend of Mr. Beiswanger's.  However, I did meet him online (or, rather, he found me) initially through the AGDI forums.  As such, I initially wasn't exactly sure how to pronounce his last name until we met in person last February.  I was pretty close though, since I'm quite good with languages (although my second language is Spanish, not German).

I remember telling the sister of my best online friend Rick's last name once, and she immediately came back with, "How do you pronounce that?"  I thought a second and typed, "It's roughly 'buys-wonger.'"

Since my last name is "Jensen," nobody has any trouble pronoucing it.  However, it's Danish in origin, and it would roughly be pronounced YEN-sen in Danish.  Somebody I once met who was from Denmark said it's like "Smith" or "Jones" over there.  People have occasionally been known to spell my name with an O as the second vowel instead of an E.  The name does mean "the son of Jens," though ("Jens" being a Danish male name).

People consistently assume, much to my displeasure, that my full name is Lucas and not Luke.  It is Lucas in Spanish, but I was named after the saint/Gospel.  It's just "Luke."

[TribeHasSpoken]

The thought of "Al Emmo" sounding like "Alamo" occurred to me immediately, but I only recently thought of the possibility that in a possible sequel the title character might end up having to pay Al-Emmo-Ny

Thank you, I'm here 'til Thursday. Try the veal.