The name of the game is the name

When we enter this world, we are immediately named. The birth certificate is filled out and our identifications are born along with us. Parents pore over baby books for months, searching for the perfect name to christen their unborn child with. Some parents choose family names, some choose the names of famous poets or celebrities or authors, some just pick a name out of the air. But when that name appears on the birth certificate, it is forever part of our identities.



I used to think that I had the worst name in the world. My last name is constantly mispronounced and misspelled wherever I go. I always understood this confusion, as my last name is an odd one. I could not, however, forgive the misspelling of my first name, "Jennie", which is such a common name, in my opinion. Teachers pronounced it "Jeanie, Janie, etc." In my case, Jennie is not derived from Jennifer. I have always been called Jennie, but my father decided I would want a more formal name, so my real first name is actually Janette. So I was cursed with two confusing first names, as well as an odd last name.


All through school, from kindergarten through college, my name was stumbled over by teachers on the first day during roll call. I always dreaded that first day, the day of judgment in which I knew I would be tortured by some strange mispronounciation of my name. I hate calling attention to myself, but I had no choice. I had to correct these educators who meant well but could not figure out the complications of my name.

I worked as a reporter for two newspapers, and once or twice I broke the cardinal journalistic rule of spelling a source's name wrong. It was so terrible that I vowed never to do it again. I asked each person to painstakingly spell out their name, and would even write it down and have them look at it, so that I wouldn't misspell it in print.

Recently, a friend who has known me for years misspelled my name in a message to me on Facebook. I corrected her and then, with years of angst bubbling up inside of me, I angrily posted my Facebook status with something to the effect of "this is how my darn name is spelled, please get used to it."

I wasn't prepared for what happened next. A firestorm of comments from friends showered down upon my seemingly innocent status. Friends began sharing their pain with me, telling me how much worse they had it with their own names. The comments persisted for a couple of days after the posting. Horror stories as well as funny stories burst forth. Some of my friends have common first names but difficult last names and vice versa. Some have not only an odd first name but also a last name. Whatever the situation, I began to realize that I was not alone. It seems that no matter what your name is, someone out there is going to misspell or mispronounce it.

Take my friend Anne-Michelle Meyer Ellis, who I've known since elementary school. She is often mistakenly called "Ann-Marie" and finds that people struggle with her name, because she has a double one.


"My name, understandably, gets spelled incorrectly all the time," Meyer Ellis wrote in an email. "Or they think it's impossible to have two names so they only call me one of them. This isn't multiple choice people!"


My friend from theater productions, Leila (pronounced "Lee-la") Jacobson constantly hears her name mispronounced.

"It's been like that my entire life, and now it's just gotten to the point where someone will say my name wrong and I'll respond without correcting them anyway and my friends will be the ones to correct them," Jacobson wrote in an email. "I just don't bother correcting anyone, unless I'm going to see them again. I think my name doesn't get misspelled so often because people just go ahead and ask me how it's spelled, but I have gotten every name in the book on coffee cups, though, "lela" "leela" "liela", etc."


My friend that I met in London, Misty Summer Plant-Luettgerodt, now a teacher, knows all too well what it is like to have an unusual name, so she is careful with her own students' names.


"As a teacher I dread mispronouncing my students names," Plant-Luettgerodt wrote. "For the first week of school I apologize in advance before I call roll, then write my students names phonetically on the roll sheet. This year I had a student whose name is Kerey but pronounced "Katie" . Some parents are soo mean, I should know, mine named me Misty Summer Plant!"

My college friend, Kim Strong Hayes, experiences the same woes as those with uncommon names.


"I kid you not...I have had to spell out my name. And my maiden name, Strong has always been pronounced incorrectly, and definitely spelled incorrectly," Strong Hayes wrote in an email. "Now how can you get that wrong? Go figure, but I do not have the pain that many others have had, especially with the various and creative spelling of names."

When I posted my message, wallowing in my own self-pity, my friend from high school, Matt Davis, reminded me that I was lucky because my name is unusual.


"At least it's unique," Davis wrote to me in an email. "There's another Matt Davis at my work and I'm constantly getting emails, phone calls and voice mails for him. And I was there first."

My friend Mercedes D. Erdey-Heydorn was given a name that was uncommon.


" Not sure how I got it," she wrote in an email. "They just wanted something different, a name that wasn't common in Hungary during those times."

My former co-worker and friend Kathryn "Katie" Albright's real name is spelled in the more unusual way.

"Yeah, Katherine and Catherine are the most common spellings," Albright wrote in an email. "Trust my mom to name me Kathryn, lol. I love my spelling, though, but I could almost never find my name on mini license plates or pens or necklaces."

My friend

Dominique Maldonado has to deal with a very different pronounciation of her name.

"With my name, Dominique Maldonado, I've gotten the wrong pronounciation of Domenic Maldenagdo," Maldonado wrote in an email. "I am like, no that is sooooooo wrong. No cookie for you!"

My college friend Jacqueline Anne Beaulac-Korntved has given up on people ever getting her name right.

"Try having the name of Jacqueline Anne Beaulac-Korntved...the only part that people can get right (and even that's pushing it) is the Anne, but usually that's spelled without the "e", Beaulac-Korntved wrotte in an email. "Go figure. I've just given up that anyone will EVER be able to pronounce or spell my name correctly. Ah well."

When all else fails, get yourself a nickname. That is what Misha Ruffin, my high school friend, had to do. She nicknamed herself with the simple name of "Bob."

"When we were in high school I went to pick up my tickets to the winter ball. At first they couldn't find them," Ruffin wrote in an email. "Then the lady found something that said '"Kasmine Buffin."' She told me those were my tickets. At least you didn't have to change your name to "Bob" in order to keep folks from saying your name wrong, let alone spelling it. lol."

My friend Kelly Marion Potter was often mistaken for a man, because her name was more associated with males when she was named.

"Now it is associated more with females. Back then, my four-year-old sister chose my name from a male baby name book. Mom liked that it meant "fighter." Now, "Warrior," Potter wrote in an email. "Hey, a name can really shape a life, eh?"

After reading all of these stories and sharing in my friends' pain, I realized that everyone has a tough time of it with their names. I started out writing this article hating my name, but now I've gained a sense of pride. I love my name, no matter how unusual it is. It is a part of me. But I do think it's vital to spell or pronounce someone's name right, so do me a favor, take the extra thirty seconds to figure out the correct spelling or pronounciation when you hear a new name. That person will be forever grateful.