People with Long Names List, Part 2

It took an act of Congress to get this image above, and it is not because the Anglo-French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg (b. 1971), who I have a huge crush though she is married with children, is smoking. There are various versions of this photograph on the web, and most of them were too big for our purposes.

On the first list of People with Long Names we featured men with difficult surnames, including Finnish ski-jumper Matti Hautmaki. This time we are posting women with long names here, and featuring a new men's with long names list on our other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time."

Here is the list (apologies in advance to anyone whose name we don't spell correctly!!!)which features women from all over the world:

1. Charlotte Gainsbourg_ The actress who starred in everything from French romcoms like "My Wife is an Actress" to shocking art films like "Antichrist" is also quite a good singer. Her late father Sergei Gainsbourg was one of the most admired singers in France during the '60s and '70s.

2. Nil Karaibrahimgil_ This Turkish singer who is somewhere near 30 years old is heard quite often on radio stations in Istanbul, and she prefers to simply call herself 'Nil.' We understand why.

3. Johana Sigurdordottir- This Icelandic prime minister is among the few world leaders who has publicly acknowledged that they are gay or lesbian. Charlotte Gainsbourg may have problems if she chose to reside in Iceland since the country is reportedly in the process of passing a de facto ban on smoking!

4. Simona Peycheva- Bulgarian rhythmic gymnast; we always try to include at least one eastern European on these lists.

5. Dominika Cibulkova- Yes, there are other tennis players from the Czech Republic or Slovakia with long, difficult names who are more famous (such as the one named Martina), but since this young Slovak tennis star reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals a few weeks ago, we thought we'd put her on the list so we could look hip.

6. Kalliopi Sarasopoulou- She is a Greek pop singer; we also try to include a person with a Greek name on these lists as they can tend to even longer than Turkish names!

7. Lilia Podkopayeva- This Ukrainian Olympian was quite impressive during her years as an impressive international gymnast, especially on the floor exercise. At 32, she would be still young enough to compete for just about any sport besides gymnastics.

8. Severa Nazarkhan- She is a singer from Uzbekistan who wowed the world with her 2003 record "Yol Bolsin," which was released through the English record lable Real World.

9. Tricia Olszewski- This film critic for "City Paper" in Washington, DC, really hated the Rutger Hauer film "Hobo with a Shotgun," but I saw it any way. It was 'ineteresting.'

10. Deepa Ranganathan- She is a leading researcher in sleep/wake patterns...need I say more!