On names

[raven]

I have been thinking a lot recently about names. Partly this is because the sunshine and change of job have given me the energy to work at languages again, so I'm thinking about words and grammar and such more generally, and partly this is because of this being the Year of Weddings. I witnessed a deed poll at a wedding recently, and then the other week, during Maria's wedding ceremony, it was very obvious that the somewhat smarmy officiant said her first name at normal volume, but her patronymic and surname very softly.

I think you must already love your friend, if you're there to see them married in the second row with your tissues out, but if possible, I loved her a little more at that moment: she had been speaking softly, but she said her names clearly and loudly for the world to hear. The officiant had the grace to look embarrassed.

For reasons I have explained many times, I have a Western, Scottish use-name. I have my surname as well, though; it's not at all a Western name. As this is a public post, I'm not going to tell you what it is. It's the same surname as a lady in a television show whom you all love. Which is, okay, me being flip, but also that is important: I look back now, and think, if I had been in primary school and there had been a woman in a TV show whom all my friends loved, with the same name as me, well. Imagine how life would have been, then.

I hated my surname then. I hated it for being weird, for always having to spell it, for never knowing how I ought to say it, for being weird weird weird. I was twenty years old by the time I sat up and said, thought, I have one of the commonest names on the planet. There are heads of state with my name, there are mathematicians and poets and sports people and there's also me and I am a person too. But before then, I had learned to mispronounce it - to say it like white people say it. Because then they will spell it right; then it's only one letter different from a proper white-person name, it's almost a real name. Then I won't be weird any more.

I will never change my surname. I don't plan to take my partner's name on marriage; I am unlikely to change it for any other reason. So here, today, I have decided: I am going to say my name the way it should be said. If people mispronounce it, I will correct them; if people mispronounce the name of the nice lady in the TV show, I will correct them, gently, and go gently named true.

And if they can't spell it, they can look it up.

Comments

[soupytwist]

Your name is an awesome name, and one of the reasons is BECAUSE it is your name.

(I am, however, now sure I've been mispronouncing it my whole life, which I... did not so much realise. Um. Sorry? *goes to find out what she should have been saying*)

[soupytwist]

Also also, I so hear you on the spelling thing (yours is not that long and not that difficult! I get annoyed enough about mine, which is NOT THAT DIFFICULT DAMMIT but it is 10 letters long so there's more of an excuse than yours, JFC) and also just to let you know that the actress playing the character you reference above? Has done voices for POSTMAN PAT. I feel this is amazing knowledge you should have.

[raven]

*grins* Thank you, my dear. Re: pronunciation - both the vowels in my name are schwa, if that makes sense. I really like your surname, it has many chewy consonants. If this does not sound too creepy, I collect interesting names for making up characters' names, and yours is somewhere, for the naming of some Federation scientist or starship pilot or other should I have cause to invent one.

Has done voices for POSTMAN PAT. I feel this is amazing knowledge you should have.

FOR SRS, THIS IS AMAZING.

[sir_guinglain]

I don't know the name of the character to whom you refer; but I now know what a schwa is - I've known the symbols for longer than you have been alive, but have never known what each was called because they didn't include their names in The Little Oxford Dictionary's 1980 edition - and how to pronouce your name. Sort of, given that the pronunication of the relevant vowel sound as recorded sounds nothing like I expected it to. Then again, my vowel sense is probably scrambled given the competing and conflicting influences on my accent.

[raven]

Hah, I'm sure my name varies a lot by accent. I'm just trying to go for a different set of variations!

[soupytwist]

I did not know what schwa was, I'm ashamed to say, but google has come to my rescue and yes, it does make sense! And I totally was mispronouncing it, too, dammit. I will know better now.

I would be SO TOTALLY honoured to be a Federation scientist or pilot or something, you don't even know. ♥

It totally makes me happy. Greendale totally needed some more diversity. :)

[forthwritten]

♥

Because, yeah. A lifetime of correcting people's pronunciation and spelling ("no, an "a", not an "er") and hearing my dad rattle off the way he tells people how to spell it so they don't get confused between similar sounding letters. A lifetime of baffled looks and the knowledge that my name marks me as other.

And, on the other side, when I was working with international students and knew how to spell their names, the way they were so surprised and delighted by such a small thing, and it would be the same surprise and delight I'd feel. And, just...it shouldn't be so surprising to encounter that, should it?

I never hated my surname, but it was pretty cool to find out that I share my surname with an empire.

[isis]

I hear you. My surname is easy-peasy (I didn't change it upon marriage), but my first name is ethnic, unusual, and English-speakers can either pronounce it properly or spell it properly, but not both. (Often neither.) I went through a phase when I was in grade school where I disliked it, but most of the time, I love my name. I love my name now.

[sabra_n]

I've spent almost my entire life asking people to pronounce my name the Israeli way instead of the American way, which in my childhood was about me being detail-oriented and finicky about doing things correctly, but eventually became a more conscious small act of Not Assimilating. But I had it easy compared to some of my classmates, really, because my name isn't something like Moran (with its inevitable nickname) or Xiaofan (difficult for Americans to pronounce right even if they want to). So I didn't suffer that much angst about the whole thing, but the name pronounced correctly is so rare in the States I don't like how it singles me out when I talk to strangers. (And okay, I admit I don't want to have the "it's Hebrew" and "yes, I'm an immigrant" conversation with people I'm never going to see again because it's exhausting.) So for occasions like Starbucks orders, I have an American use-name to hand out, a practice I picked up from my (very obviously foreign-named) dad.

[raven]

Starbucks have recently begun to do that in the UK, after years of not doing it, and I'm honestly tempted to do the same thing. It bothers me that it's always, always so complicated, but I relate to your story a lot. It's good to know no one is the only one. :)

[tau_sigma]

This bothers me a lot about the Starbucks names-on-cups coming to Britain; I haven't yet been in one since it happened, but I am honestly tempted to go by 'Fred' when I do, because I can't deal with the stress of having to explain my name, or the grinding irritation of having it spelt wrong again.

[livrelibre]

Rock on:)

[surexit]

I figured out your surname from the Postman Pat + current TV combination (not in a creepy way, I just happen to know that piece of trivia because I like Postman Pat >.>) and I had no idea I'd been mispronouncing that name! :O I am always fascinated by the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable mispronunciations, and where they fall for different people and different societies (Japan and the States, for example, have in my experience been two countries with a noticeably strong societal tendency to nativise name pronunciation). I have a name which is not pronounced how it's spelt and it's utterly baffling to me how many people don't listen to me when I introduce myself, if they've already seen my name written down. And it's pronounced in an English way (and spelt in a French way), so it must be so much worse to have a name which isn't.

[marina]

♥

[glinda]

Names are important, names are powerful, I wish you the best of strength and patience in your quest to be named true.


(My own surname is an Anglification of a Gaelic name, and still people spell it wrong and mispronounce it and tell me I'm the one spelling/pronouncing it wrong. Sometimes I just wince and move on when they do it, sometimes I verbally evicerate them.)

[raven]

Thank you, that is a lovely thing to say. :)

[silverhare]

Ooh, I didn't know that. Thank you for the heads up. I know another person with the same surname as you, an I can now helpfully not-mispronounce the names of two of my friends. Yaaay. :)

[raven]

<3

[liminereid.livejournal.com]

As with the commentator on dream width I am now looking up the pronunciation of your surname to see how I've been doing it wrong. I really understand your frustration. It is so rare for people to spell and pronounce my first and surname correctly. Added to the fact my surname is now legally and permanently misspelled because my semi-literate grandfather was bullied into misspelling it as it was too foreign, he misspelled it on his own wedding certificate and brought his kids up with the new spelling on their birth certificate. My first name leads to constant jokes about the welsh language and endless people calling me sean or shan. I am glad you have embraced your name. I think i have felt similarly for some time. I love being my name in the end. I don't want to change it to make it easier from a purely anglophone point of reference.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

I apologise for having inadvertently mispronounced your name (in my head) until now. I will no longer do so.

This post is lovely; thank you for writing it.

I don't plan to change my name upon marriage (if I get married), either. Because it's my name; it's part of me and my identity, and I like it. I don't want to give that up just because society says I should. (R has said he would quite like to take my name, if we marry, because it would be nice to have the same one. And it would, but part of me feels incredibly guilty about making him give up his name. But would I think this if our genders were reversed? Or do I just feel weird about it because a man taking his female partner's name is Not Done and men's names are special? I don't know.) My parents talk, sometimes, about changing it, because it is the surname of my dad's parents, whom we no longer have contact with. But I would rather make it my own.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading it. :) I think names are much more complicated than they seem - they're tied up so much with identity. I am charmed by R's thought about changing his name to match yours, though! It seems like such an affirmative thing to do.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

They really are. One thing I like about mine is that it is most commonly found in Lancashire, which is where my family comes from (my dad was born there, and the family tree I have for my mum's family - although my last name is not her maiden one - shows a lot of them as being from the Lancashire/Cheshire area). I like feeling that I have a name that reflects some of my family history.

Yes - I do like how matter-of-fact he is about such things. "Why shouldn't I take your name/wash up/wear a pink flowery apron and do the cooking?etc."

[magic-doors.livejournal.com]

It's been mildly amazing to me to realise how utterly context dependent me feeling like I had a common name was. In my current location, my name is constantly being misspelled, mispronounced and my surname just gets mystified looks. I did not know that I was mispronouncing your name, I shall go forth corrected!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I never thought of that! I can't even begin to imagine how your name is pronounced at the moment.

(and, thank you. :P)

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

This is a lovely post! A linguistic question: I generally expect foreign names in any language to be pronounced as part of that language. So I wouldn't expect the French name 'Marie' or the Russian name 'Ol'ga' to be pronounced in English the same way they are pronounced in French or Russian, I'd expect them to be pronounced with an English accent. Would you consider British Englishes as separate languages or dialects to Indian Englishes, and hence to have different pronunciation rules for your surname? Or is it more that your name IS also a British name, and as such should be pronounced properly in British Englishes?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :) I certainly think that Indian English and British Englishes are different dialects - Indian English has so many distinct words and grammatical constructions. And I guess you could also argue that I'm British, a British English speaker and my own pronunciation of my name is therefore a British English pronunciation! But I don't think it's a true comparison to compare this situation with names in French and Russian, because with French and Russian compared to English, you don't have the stand-out issue that my name, my history and my language have historically been distorted by the colonising culture and language. I guess I don't think this can be an only linguistic question - I mean, you could argue for a long time about which is the real name of the city, Mumbai or Bombay, but in the end there's only one "right" answer.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for your answer! Of course the politics are different - and thank you for taking the time to unpack that for me.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

... and my turn to apologise for getting your surname wrong on our wedding invitation -- the wrong name spelt correctly, rather than the right name spelt wrongly, but still. And this is partly because I didn't know your name, and partly because I recall you saying something similar to
> I hated my surname then. I hated it for being weird, for always having to spell it, for never knowing how I ought to say it, for being weird weird weird.
eight or ten years ago.

I'm very lucky never to have had difficulty with my name.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I figured it was just a typo. I don't know if I said before, but I really am sorry we can't make it to your wedding. It was so nice to see you the other day, regardless! A lovely surprise.

[sriti.livejournal.com]

Funny you should mention this! I just read this (http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/67725800.html) today!

I have a sister-in-law living in London, named Asma. Now, just stop to think for a minute how it might be pronounced there. She actually had people asking her why she was named after a disease! By the way, if you had guessed Asthma, you were right.

Oh, and now I'm really curious about your name!

[fyrdrakken]

I have one of the most common given names for an American woman of about my age (I had to go by my surname in high school because it seemed like fully a third of the girls were named either Jennifer or Amy) and a surname that's a five-letter common English word. And I still have problems because it's rare as a family name, and people assume it's a typo for a more common name they've actually encountered -- mispronouncing it or "correcting" the spelling.

I enjoy having it, though -- especially when paired with such a super-common first name. Getting married and having to make a decision about a change is becoming vanishingly unlikely -- still, my inclination would be to keep it or possibly hyphenate with my spouse's surname. It's just too good to give up entirely.

[thecapitalc.livejournal.com]

HEAR HEAR! I thought it was because he hadn't figured out how to say it without tripping over all those lovely syllables.

Now let's not talk about the ceremony because we will both tear up and disgrace ourselves *sniff*

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Silly man. Surely standing up and pronouncing people's names is what he does for a living??

(I am so so glad I wasn't the only person making an idiot of myself! It was so lovely!)

[tau_sigma]

Iona, you are always inspiring. I shall make a note, if I have cause to say your surname out loud, to pronounce it properly, because I did have it wrong in my head before.

(I am intrigued, though, I can't for the life of me work out what name it is one letter different from!)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*smiles* That is kind, and I think it's a step forwards: if all my friends pronounce my name right, then hang strangers and bureaucracy getting it wrong.

(I shall tell you in some less public forum!)

[tau_sigma]

(A belated 'nother comment; this is resonating with me a lot at the moment. I know that I don't have the cultural and colonial implications of your name and related issues. But, names are important. And my name is difficult, apparently. Consequently, it is constantly mispronouced, misspelled, or replaced by a more 'normal' name. (Of the three certificates I have received at this job, only my degree certificate has the correct name. Ffs.)

And yet, I always seem to feel embarrassed for people who pronounce or spell my name wrong, like it's my fault! And I am too shy and lacking in confidence to correct people, sometimes. And then, I know people will ask 'what was that, sorry?' or 'how do you spell that?' and I get even more self-conscious, and I begin to stumble and stutter over my own damn name.

So. I am going to go out into the world, and think of you, saying your name the way it should be said, and I am going to try to be more assertive about my name. Thank you for that. <3)

[deathbyshinies.livejournal.com]

I hated my surname then. I hated it for being weird, for always having to spell it, for never knowing how I ought to say it, for being weird weird weird.

Ahahaha, a bunch of this. By the time I was 13-14, I'd learned to go straight to spelling my surname for people rather than bothering to say it, and to jump up and identify myself the moment a new teacher reached That Point in the roll-call so that I could intercept them on the first 'Co-eey?' and hopefully head them off before they moved on to 'Corgi' or 'Cow-ey'. Oh, the corgi-based lulz. *shudder*

I had a perfectly lovely experience not that long ago while on a customer service line, though -- the agent who took my call was from Northern Ireland (I'm guessing Belfast or the NE, but don't actually know). She intercepted me in the middle of my spelling-out, got the name perfectly right, and then when I sounded surprised proceeded to point out that it's all over the place where she lives. I could have reached down the phone and hugged her.

There aren't really that many mathematicians or heads of state who have the same name as me. But the sound is only a one-syllable difference from a character on a certain geeky space-based television-and-film series, and I've actually had a much easier time getting people to remember it since that got popular again :)

[lauds.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed this post. Names are something I've started thinking about fairly recently, such a trivial thing set it off but there was one of those memes where you posted different variations of your name including one with your mother's maiden name. It made me wish that my actual name more accurately reflected that side of me. Anyway, thanks for sharing and I shall mull it over some more (as well as googling the pronunciation of your surname!).