[Gocamino] Mystery solved

[Robert Spenger]

When I first heard about Hape Kerkeling and his book, I wondered,  
"What kind of a name is Hape and how is it pronounced?" My heritage is  
all from German-speaking countries and I had never heard of such a  
name. As far as the pronunciation is concerned, since the final "e" in  
many German word is a schwa, i.e. pronounced like the "a" in abet, I  
guessed that it might be like the Hopa part of Hopalong Cassidy.

Finally an English translation came out and, after seeing some  
encouraging reports of it on a couple of the camino forums, I ordered  
a copy from Amazon. It arrived today, and, what do you know, on the  
very first page, I find that his given names are Hans and Peter. Later  
on it turned out that he has a second middle name of Wilhelm. However,  
on that first page he mentioned that his grandmother referred to him  
as Hans Peter and it suddenly struck me - H.P.! Ha pe in German. And  
it would be pronounced as HahPay, if they stick with the names of the  
letters. I still don't know how they pronounce it as a name, but it  
rings a bell with me, since I often called my brother J.P., since his  
given names were John and Paul.

Bob S.