A lot of people are surprised that I…

A lot of people are surprised that I pronounce my last name in Japanese as サールズ ("saaruzu") instead of something that looks more like Searls (せアルス). Here's why:

In English, Searls is pronounced like "Pearls" but with an "S" instead of a "P"

So I reverse-applied the same mnemonic to Japanese: start with katakana for pearls (パールズ) and replace パ ("pa") with サ ("sa"). That way in both languages, it's "Pearls with an 'S'"