mordant wit

Fuk King Kwok was waiting for his driver's license to be printed when his name was called and a chuckling Illinois secretary of state employee offered some advice.

"She [said] this is a dangerous name," the Chinese immigrant recalled. "She [said] the name translated is not so good, maybe I should change [it]. The word I hear is not so good."

Not so good, indeed. That clerk, like so many other Americans who have said his name since he came to Chicago in 1999, didn't pronounce his first name the proper way -- "fook."

Instead, she and the others would pronounce his name with an "uh" sound instead of the "oo" -- in other words, like the granddaddy of all swear words.

"And my middle name is terrible, too," he admitted. "That combination becomes very terrible." Last month in Cook County Circuit Court -- three years after that clerk offered the advice -- Fuk King Kwok changed his name.

He's now Andy Kwok.