Putting the G in Mussorgsky
Earlier today, I had occasion to look at the Wikipedia article about Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky. I was amused by the section about variant spellings of his last name, especially this bit:
The addition of the "g" to the name was likely initiated by the composer's elder brother Filaret to obscure the resemblance of the name's root to an unsavory Russian word:
мусoр (músor) — n. m. debris, rubbish, refuse
Mussorgsky apparently did not take the new spelling seriously, and played on the "rubbish" connection in letters to Vladimir Stasov and to Stasov's family, routinely signing his name Musoryanin, roughly "garbage-dweller" (compare dvoryanin: "nobleman").