What's in a name?

I have a new dermatologist (both parents had and survived melanoma, so it's indicated for me to have a skin survey yearly). Her name is Dr. Kwak. I kid not. I feel for her. That must be a burden. The receptionist thought it advisable to volunteer, "it's spelled K-w-a-k." My last name (as occurs to some people but not others), although it is Swiss-German, is sometimes taken for English, and given a somewhat rude connotation. 

As a kid, I had to put up with the occasional taunt. My mother, who was Secretary of a pioneering reproductive rights activist organization in California in the mid-1960s was the butt of one of those margin blurbs in Playboy in 1968: "Aptly yclept Secretary of the California Committee on Therapeutic Abortion: Ellen Studhalter." It's actually not that funny.