What's In A Name?

My former surname rhymed with turd, years of jokes made me cringe when my name was called in the roll for tutorial classes when I was at university and as such I was to anxious too go to classes. Dropped out, became estranged from my father and legally changed my name. Best decision ever.

That’s exactly what happens to me.

My first name is mispronounced and misspelled most of the time. It is a name that has various legitimate pronunciations so if people say anything reasonably close to my pronunciation I don’t bother to correct them. However, it is also a name that is very close to another name, if you transpose two letters. Since that is a completely different name, I do tend to correct people who say that. I have always hated my name. I probably should have changed it but I’m too lazy to bother now.

My last name is also invariably misspelled and mispronounced. It isn’t terribly complicated but it is unusual and I think people see all the vowels and panic.

As for teasing based on names, I think that is inevitable among children. It seems very odd that adults would choose to engage in this sort of thing, except as some sort of clumsy attempt at banter.

My last name is also that of a popular geographical location, so yes, I am familiar with the stranger who feels compelled to make an asinine comment about it. There are two routes that can be taken with this name - the first is dumb and lame, the second is offensive. Fortunately strangers going with route #2 has only happened once or twice, but I have overheard people using it when they thought I was out of earshot.

I find I must always spell my name if it’s to be entered on any official record as well - there are two possible spellings, and upon hearing my name, if you asked 100 people to spell it, 99 of them would spell it the wrong way. I think there’s just something in people’s brains that refuse to compute that the correct spelling could also be someone’s name.

My last name is the same as a celebrity and at least 90% of people who hear my last name for the first time ask if we are related. Usually they drop it after that, but not always.

My first name is the same as a popular 50’s song, so that has been sung to me a few times.

I had a landlord named Joe Blow, for real. I NEVER commented about it in front of him.

I remember somebody running for sheriff proclaimed on his billboards, “Vote for Dick Mecum.” I wonder if he ever got elected and initiated some payback to everybody who mocked his name.

I worked with a Shari who pronounced her name as “Shah-ree”. Not “Sherry”.

I also worked with a Sherry, Shelly, and Cherie. It was hell when all four of them were in a meeting that I was leading.

My maiden name was the same as the last name of one of the characters in the Peanuts comic strip. Suffice it to say that everyone thought they were the only one who’d ever said, “So, do you play the piano, XXXXXX?”

[Of course, this was made worse by the fact that I did play the piano.]

On the other side, my husband knew of a family named Phail. The parents named their son I. Will. To me, that goes beyond cruelty. Perhaps the French are right to have the registrar reject certain names and mandate that the child be given a “standard” name for such purposes.

I’ve also known two people who didn’t like their first names and went by names completely different than their first or middle names. In both cases, it made sense, because their given names were just not right for their personality (yes, I’m being subjective here, but so were they), whereas the names they chose just fit them better.

Ah, the “what were they thinking???” names… I know I’ve mentioned a coworker whose last name was Winters - she named her daughter Stormie. C’mon, stripper name, right? Or maybe spokesmodel?

Yeah, I’m being judgmental and I will apologize if she’s ever a contender for a Nobel Prize.

Forgot to add: About 20 years ago I was traveling through New Jersey when my car slid on an icy patch and rear-ended an SUV. The guy and I got out and were exchanging insurance information, and I saw that his last name was Frankenstein. I did not joke about his name, but he did, saying that when he proposed to his wife, she accepted on the condition that she, and any future children, would bear her last name. “It was an executive decision,” he said, then mused, “And what makes it worse is that I’m a doctor.”

One of my mother’s friends was named Mrs. Eddy. My brother and I had a grand old time once we found out that her first name was Gaye.

A major grocery chain in Texas is called “H.E.B.” They’ve run Safeway and Kroger’s out of the southern part of the state, and are holding their own against Wal-Mart. There’s an HEB in every little burg out in the sticks.

This is a fact: It is named for its founder, Herbert E. Butt.

This may or may not be a fact, as I dunno: he had a daughter. Named Ophelia.

According to Wiki, his first name is Howard and he does not have a daughter named Ophelia.

Which is just a well, Ima Hogg already filled the position of a daughter of a well-known Texan with an unfortunate name.

…wul, if I checked the FACTS first, I wouldna had much of a STORY, would I?

Y’all make me happy that my parents gave me a pretty idiot proof name. My last name is Polish and has an unfortunate combination of vowels that 1 in 100 people pronounce.

Anyways my friend Barbara or Barb is a great person. But woe be to the self styled wit that references anything pink or calls her Barbie.