Reif Larsen: My name is Reif Larsen. And the name Reif is very unusual and often mispronounced. I think if people see it, they most often say Reef. And I've stopped really correcting people, which is probably not a good idea. We get two years into a relationship and they're still saying that, because it just happens all the time.

But Reif is a sort of made up name. My grandfather was Norwegian, and my uncle was actually named Leif. And Leif is a very common Norwegian name. But my parents, they were hippies. And so they said, "Ah, we can make up anything, including the name of our child." So they sort of took Raphael, and Rick, and Leif, and all squished it together and made Reif. Which left me with a confusing name that no one knows how to pronounce, and no one knows where it comes from. When I'm in America, they're like, "Oh, what kind of name is Reif?" And I say, "It's Norwegian." And then when I go to Norway, they say, "Oh, what kind of name is Reif?" And I say, "I don't know. It's an invented name."

So I thought long and hard about this when I gave my own children their names, so they wouldn't spend most of their life explaining their names. When I go to a restaurant now -- and I made this decision when I was, like, twelve -- I just give my name as Ray. I calculated how many hours I would save over the course of my lifetime from explaining it or trying to spell it out for people.

But at the same time, if you have an unusual name, it makes you who you are. So it's probably encoded in my DNA at this point.