Let’s be honest, many of us could have made the same mistake. The name ‘Vivian’ after all is more commonly used among the female gender — though its Latin origins may prescribe the Vivianus as the masculine and Viviana as the feminine handle.
Latin history lessons aside, Singapore’s Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan was the victim of a case of mistaken identity on an international level. United Nations General Assembly president Peter Thomson accidentally tweeted that India’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Sushma Swaraj was a ‘Ms. Vivian Balakrishnan’. Not many would have known if not for Yahoo Singapore spotting the “diplomatic faux pas”.
Yeesh. But Thomson quickly fixed his gaffe and deleted the tweet before replacing it with the correct name.
Vivian is a feminine name though.
