maybe, just maybe because you Dutch people have a strange ( ) way of pronouncing things! the street names in your country can only be rememberd as "this one", "that one", "the one with that river", "the one with 4 a´s and 6 t´s next to each other (in the name)"

I agree that Duch is painful to listen to and impossible to read correctly or even close to correctly! But still, the hardest language of all is Hungarian - even driving through Hungary hurts. Those people have city names consisting of 20 letters in unpronounceable clusters. You drive towards a sign, start reading the name and ...you´re out of the city already. Terrible!

 I didnt know that in Turkey they mention the religion on the passport, I thought turkey is secular!

Once a friend of mine was asked by a french official if he wishes to change his name to a french one when he applied to the citizenship, my friend replied, I am not a criminal who is fleeing justice in my country and i need to hide and change my name. I would like to keep it as is..

nice answer no?

 Not true. You dont have to take a Turkish name. you just have to make sure your name can be written in the Turkish way.

My name is Marion. (PS: please note this everyone who writes Marionin. My nick is MarioninTurkey = Marion-in-Turkiye!)

On my Turkish ID card it is written Mariyon.  No need to change it to Meryem, Lale, Ayþe or whatever. 

 Quite a lot of my foreign friends married to Turks use this compromise.

I know a

   Can Daniel...

   Deniz Melissa..

   Sam Emin ...

   Cem Nathan ...

   Gizem Shelly ...

   Kayra Grace ...

Just the thing to watch out for is that if you have 2 names, in england we use the first one: Edwin P. Starr. In Turkey they use the second one: M. Ali Þimþek

Thanks for this Marion(in ) - I think the guy I was talking about is a bit ´full of it´ if you know what I mean!  I tend to take most of what he says with a pinch of salt  but if the English name isn´t suitable to write ´in the Turkish way´ do you think it´s possible they were asked to use another name?  And could I use my name - Jill - for example or would they want me to write ´Jale´ (which I´ve been told approximates to my name)?

 oh, dear, maria, you cant just simply state so. you dont know everything, do you. i personally didnt know that turks forced other nationals (not all of them) to change their names until i read a few articles and heard stories.

 i never get irritated when people cant pronounce my name. actually i find it even funny. i listened to my name spoken by koreans for many years(BARAN which in russian means ram), it was a bit offending.

I agree on what you say. I know someone by the name of "nayif" who had to change his name in france because it resembles "naive" and everyone used to laugh at his name.

I would say the name should be changed if it has a humiliating meaning in the other language.

Bobby might be a nice name for english speakers but in lebanon it means a puppy

My name in turkish means "paternal aunt"!

That just reminded me of a friend who is a member of TC (although he hasn´t been around for a while).  His name is Mustafa - known as Musti.  Then someone told him that ´Musty´ means ´damp and rather smelly´ in English! 

I am afraid it must be something for Americans (of Polish descend...?) that they can´t pronounce our beautiful language. What is wrong with: ´Jonkheer Ruys de Beerenbroucklaan´? Easy, isn´t it?