We might have expected to see the end of cases like this one, and that of MP Rajen Prasad who described this week how some years ago he briefly changed his name to Harry to gain acceptance.
Harry Prasad is a dreadful name. It sounds like a bookie's runner. His real name, however, carries an air of Indian nobility.
I understand why immigrants change their names. There's something demeaning about having to repeat something as basic as your name so that someone with an uneducated ear can get it into their thick heads.
But getting someone's name right, as we teach our children from an early age, is the most basic of courtesies and it behoves those of us, of whatever race, welcoming newcomers here, to meet that minimum standard of politeness.
We are not a multicultural society if we have monocultural names. When we condone someone changing their name to "fit in" we are saying we are happy to use their skills, their labour, their intellectual property, probably a bit of their food, their exotic music and dancing, their taxes and their children's potential. We just won't use their names.
Pity the fools
Many, if not most, politicians start their careers motivated not by the desire to exercise power and wallow in worldly glory but by a drive to bring about change, a belief they can make a difference, and a certainty they can help those who might need it.
Only after their first week in office does that go out the window and they become willing to exchange their most dearly held principles for one small gain in a backroom deal, deceive their closest colleagues to get the portfolio they want, and generally eat bucketfuls of body waste to hang on to their unfortunate career choices. Disappointment at this turn of events probably lasts another week and after that they just get on with it.
In some cases, however, this becomes so obvious it's hard to watch.
Take John Banks and John Key. Their tragedy is writ large in their faces: Banks, a genuinely big-hearted man, a sentimental politician of the kind we seldom see now with his eyes permanently set to deer-in-headlights; and Key with his default aw shucks, shrug and grin response now in overdrive as the revelations about his partner-in-power and donations from Kim Dotcom give him no room for any strategy except wilful blindness.
Two normally likeable and extremely intelligent people have been forced into this ridiculous position, made to appear fools or knaves - possibly both - in the eyes of the public, by the requirements of their jobs. Whatever your other feelings about politicians, envy should not be one of them.
Who knew
Meanwhile, in other news this week, it was revealed that the Duchess of Cambridge possesses breasts.
