As I rang up a sale today with a very nice couple the woman was spelling her last name. I am very bad at taking down letters so I was going slowly as she spelled, “K, A, S, E, B, E, R, G.”
As I got to “berg” at the end my brain caught up a little and prompted that that means “mountain” in German. My eyes then flicked back to the first part and I scanned “Kase” and I started giggling.
I looked at the woman and asked, “Does your name mean ‘Cheese Mountain?’”
Her eyebrows shot up and she asked, “You speak German?”
“Not very well, but I still have basic vocabulary.”
“It does mean Cheese Mountain,” she told me with delight.
“I love that so much. That’s the best name ever.”
She told me it was her maiden name and she’d always loved it and had gone back to it after a divorce. She also said she met a German woman once who saw it and was befuddled by such a name but I think it’s incredible.
