World Cup Lists (2 of 4): Players with Long Names

It looked like the Greek national team had a profound advantage in yesterday's knock-out round game with Costa Rica, until the game ended in a 1-1 tie, even after two extra 15 minute sessions, and was determined by penalty kicks.

But, Greece leaves us with plenty of long difficult names to play with, as does Russia, Iran and Bosnia.

Here are 11 of them:

1. Sokratis Papastathopoulous. 26.  Greece (scored the tying goal versus Costa Rica yesterday,pict. center). Club team: Borussia Dortmund (Germany)

2. Giannis Fetafatzidis. 27. Greece. Bologna (Italy)

3. Maksim Kannunnikov. 22. Russia. Rubin Kazan (Russia)

4. Sergei Igmanashevich. 34. Russia. CSKA Moscow (Russia)

5. Liassine Cadamurco-Bentaiba. 26. Algeria. Mallorca (Spain)

6. Haris Mendunjanin. 29. Bosnia (pict. bottom). Gaziantepspor (Turkey)

7. Reza Ghoochannejhad. 26. Iran. Charlton Athletic (England, second div.)

8. Andranik Teymourian. 31. Iran. Esteghal (Iran). An ethnic Armenian, he is the first Christian to ever captain an Iranian national team.

9. Mario Gauranovic. 24. Switzerland. (pictured top) Zurich.

10. Benjamin Moukandjo. 25. Cameroon. Nancy (France)

11. Cesar Azpilicueta. 24. Spain. Chelsea.

http://www.worldcup.usatoday.com

The Olympic(s) Lists (6 of 10): Athletes with Long Last Names

Since there is 18 inches of snow in our front yard, we thought what better time to get the next freaking list out of the way, and this time, we turn our attention to Olympic athletes with long or cumbersome last names. Of course, we realize that in their countries, our names would be challenging too.

1) Krista Lahteenmaki (pictured). Age 23. Finland. Women's Cross-Country Skiing.

2) Mohammad Kiadarbandsari. Age 24. Iran. Men's Alpine Skiing (as one might expect, there are no female athletes from Iran!).

3) Kelime Cetinkaya. Age 31. Turkey. Women's Cross-Country Skiing.

4) Mats Zuccaerllo-Aasen. Age 28. Norway. Men's Hockey. Plays for the New York Rangers.

5) Yekatrina Smolentseva. Age 32. Russia. Women's Hockey

6) Iouri Podladtchikov. Age 25. Switzerland. Men's Snowboarding. Won gold. Was born in Russia, and is of Russian heritage. A crowd-favorite in Sochi.

7) Yekatrina Tudegesheva. Age 26. Russia. Women's Snowboarding.

8) Dmytro Pidruchnyi. Age 22. Ukraine. Men's Biathlon.

9) Elena Khrustaleva. Age 33. Kazakhstan. Women's Biathlon.

10) Albert Demchenko. Age 42. Russia. Men's Luge. Won silver.

Links:

http://www.kristalahteenmaki.fi/ (In Finnish)

http://www.sochi2014.com/en

Soccer Week (4 of 8): Players with Very Very Long Lastnames

Who is this Greek soccer player who plays for the Greek league team Panathinaikos? Well, you will have to find out by scrolling below because we don't want to try to spell his name twice.

We only needed to look a few European (UEFA) leagues to come up with this list. Among those who were eliminated from contention because of long surnames that were simply not long enough was Turkish soccer Gokhan Deirmeci of Kayserispor, a team that plays its games in Kayseri, Turkey.

Here are some last names you probably will not envy, but then again not all of us can be as luck as Dr. Mehmet Oz (Dr. Oz......yes, that is his real last name, and most Turkish names, including our very own Tilly Gokbudak's are longer than that):

1. Jakub Blaszcykowski (Polish player with Bayern Leverkusen in Germany)

2. Kyriakos Papadopoulos (Greek player with Schalke 'O4 in Germany)

3. Konstantinos Triantafylloppoulos (Greek player with Panathinaikos in Greece; he is the mystery player who is pictured.......you see why I'm only spelling his name once!) *

4. Stefanos Kragiopoulos (Greek player with Iraklis in Greece)

5. Adrian Mierzejewski (Polish player with Trabzonspor in Turkey)

6. Oguz Daglaroglu (Turkish player with Akhisar Belediyespor in Turkey)

7. Tigran Gharabaghtsyan (Armenian player with Ararat Yerevan in Armenia)

8. Rey Mammadbayli (Azeri player with AZAL PFK in Azerbaijan)

9. Shimon Abudhatzira (Israeli player with Maccabi Haifa in Israel)

10. Sergei Parshivlyuk (Rusian player with Spartak Moscow, we almost didn't get his name right!)

11. Aleksandr Ryazanatsev (Russian player with Rubin Kazan in Russia)

http://www.greeksoccer.com

http://www.turkish-futbol.com

http://www.armenia-soccer.com




*- Hopefully, we spelled the Greek player pictured correctly!

Top Ten Lists- People with Long, Difficult Names (Males)

Here is an arbitrary list of famous or relatively famous people with long, difficult names. Since my name is Tilly Gokbudak, each of them has my full sympathy! A random top ten list of women with long names will be on our other blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time."

1. Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul_ (pictured) Whew! We almost didn't spell this one right. But, I suspect many people would have this problem. The 40-year-old Thai director is known around the world by cineastes for his eccentric, off-beat 'small movies' like "Tropical Malady."

2. Siva Vaidyanathan_ This American author of Indian heritage (b.1966) is a media scholar and author. He teaches at the University of Virginia and his current book is "The Googlization of Everything." Yes, we are double-checking his name. It appears to be spelled right!

3. Eugeny Viktrorovich Pluashenko. This 28-year-old Russian figure skater won Olympic gold at the 2006 Turin Olympics.

4. Gebre Gebremariam. An Ethiopian long-distance runner who finished third in last week's Boston Marathon; he also won the 2010 New York Marathon.

5. Zach Galifianakis_ Famous Greek-American actor from Wikesboro, NC, who was in "The Hangover" and "Due Date." His father was a member of Congress.

6. Matti Hautamaki_ This 29-year-old Finnish ski-jumper won silver medals at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and at the 2006 Turin Olympics.

7. Naim Suleymanoglu_ This 44-year-old former Turkish weight-lifter actually defected from then-communist Bulgaria. He went on to win Olympic gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Also known as the 'Pocket Hercules,' Suleymanoglu has alas suffered major health problems in recent years.

8. Rod Blagojevich. This disgraced former Illinois governor is one of the very few Democrats I would never vote for.

9. Volker Schlondorff. He is a legendary German film director best known for cinematic version of "The Tin Drum" (Germany, 1979.)

10. Ross Bagdasarian Jr. This Armenian-American is continuing his late father's legacy as the voice of "Alvin and the Chipmunks."

We hope we got all their names right!