I’m now going by Luiz instead of João, or JV as most people here know me.
João is a very common name in Portuguese-speaking countries like Brazil. It is the Bible equivalent of John. When I moved to Canada, since João is difficult to pronounce in English, mainly because of the tilde sound which is unique to Portuguese, I started using JV to simplify people’s lives and mine.
The challenge is that people don’t expect an acronym when they ask for a name and that also generates confusion. Some people even write Javie or some variation.
As my first name is actually João Luiz, I use that in most registrations, and one of them is Starbucks. Almost always, when I order something, they ignore the João on the label and call for Luiz. That has had me thinking about rebranding for a while now.
A pumpkin spice latte for Joao Luiz V., called out as Luiz
I ran an experiment on our Indonesia trip by introducing myself as Luiz and it was a lot smoother than using João, which confirmed it is better.
So that’s the main reason, just to make everyone’s life easier. Same person, same content, just easier to say and remember.
The drawback is spelling, as people usually spell it as Luís (with the S), but in Portuguese that requires the accent on the i, so I’m glad my parents went with the old version with the Z and no accent. I also know Luiz can still be confused with Louis or Luis, but at least the pronunciation will be a lot more similar than the tens of pronunciation variations I heard of João.
I’m trying to update everywhere, but some places may still have the old one. I also moved this blog from joaovieira.ca to luizvieira.me to remove the regional indexing bias, so it can be more global as well. Old joaovieira.ca links still work and redirect here.
Cheers.