How do people deal with “unfortunate” last names?

You’re not hinting that my last name is unfortunate there, Michael, are you? 🙂

I haven’t suffered all that much for it. Certainly not as much as some respondents. If someone carries on about it, I inwardly (or maybe even not that inwardly) roll my eyes, and move on. I used to be nicknamed Nick Squared, and I took no offence at that. A couple of decades ago, someone said to me that I would not be as obnoxious as I am if I didn’t have that name. I chose to take that as a compliment.

My reactions when someone expresses surprise at my name are: either to point out that I’ve got three cousins with the same name, so there’s more of me where that came from; or to exclaim that they loved me so much that they named me twice. Just like New York, New York.