It’s hard out there for a boy wizard.  I mean, while Harry Potter has magical powers and cool friends and whatnot, he’s always being chased around by Dementors or attacked by Voldemort and all the other problems that Harry has.  (Can you tell I’ve never read the books?)  What’s even worse is the fate of the real-life Harry Potter, the kid who shares the wizard’s name, hair color, forehead scar, nationality, and birth year.

Harry can’t do ANYTHING that requires the use of his name without several forms of ID and, worse, lots of snickering and dumb jokes about Hogwarts and wizardry.  It’s really amazing that there’s someone in real life who has the same problems as a fictional character.  No, not the boy wizard, the adult software engineer.  In the movie Office Space there’s a great quote about the singer Michael Bolton from the character who shares his name.  In the movie Michael and Samir Nagheenanajar are complaining about their names.

Samir: No one in this country can ever pronounce my name right. It’s not that hard: Na-ghee-na-na-jar. Nagheenanajar.
Michael Bolton: Yeah, well, at least your name isn’t Michael Bolton.
Samir: You know, there’s nothing wrong with that name.
Michael Bolton: There *was* nothing wrong with it… until I was about twelve years old and that no-talent ass clown became famous and started winning Grammys.
Samir: Hmm… well, why don’t you just go by Mike instead of Michael?
Michael Bolton: No way! Why should I change? He’s the one who sucks.

I have no doubt real Harry Potter hates fictional Harry Potter as much as fictional Michael Bolton hates real Michael Bolton.

Tags: Harry Potter, real-life Harry Potter, same names, unusual names, fictional characters, teen shares name with Harry Potter, Portsmouth, England

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