Juwan at Chick-Fil-A

Today I went to Chick-Fil-A with Noelle.

A young black guy took my order and then asked my name. As soon as I said "Sean" I saw his name tag and it said "Juwan." First time meeting someone named Juwan. As I was giving him my debit card, I pointed at the name on the card.

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Me: My real name is "Joowon" (pointing to the card), and people used to call me "Juwan Howard" when I was in High School. I see you're Juwan too. 

Cashier Juwan: My mom named me after him. (the guy seemed a little shy)

(wait... what? was that a joke?)

Me: Really? wait, how old are you?

Juwan: 19

Me: Oh.... was he playing back then?

Juwan: Yeah.  He was famous. 

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I just googled Juwan Howard, and checked he got drafted in 1994 (19 years ago). I was a freshman in High school then. How my friends in basketball team pronounced my name was probably heavily influenced by Juwan Howard, putting less accent on "joo-" and more on "-won". I was just pleasantly surprised that I met Juwan in real life and got a chance to have a conversation about my nickname from high school. Man, time flies. When I first knew Juwan Howard, he just got drafted in the NBA, and he recently retired after playing 19 seasons. And a baby who was born when I was a HS freshman, is now 19 and works at Chick-fil-a.