You definitely don't have to have a difficult name for people to have difficulty with it. One of the reasons I chose to take my husband's family name when we got married because I was so sick of saying "My name is Judy Single ... that's S I N G L E"
That, and the small range of very, very boring and stupid comments about it that passed for humour in many circles. Judy -- "Politics is the work we do to keep the world safe for our spirituality" - Judith Plaskow Rev Judy Redman Uniting Church Chaplain University of New England Armidale 2351 ph: +61 2 6773 3739 fax: +61 2 6773 3749 web: http://www.une.edu.au/campus/chaplaincy/uniting/ action for peace: http://www.une.edu.au/campus/chaplaincy/uniting/links/peace.html email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Clare Pascoe > Henderson > Sent: Tuesday, 8 June 2004 9:45 AM > To: insights > Subject: Re: What\'s in a name? > > > > > Peter R. Ellis & family wrote: > > > My wife, who teached preschool aged children in government > preschools, finds seemingly endless variations on names. I wonder > whether it has anything to do with a desire on the part of > parents to give their children a distinctive identity. I also > wonder whether it instead impales the young person on a pike of > explaining their whole life that there name is pronounced and > spelled this way rather than what many prople would assume might > be that way... and whether the parent would do such a thing if > they had such a name themselves. > > Speaking as someone who has one of those names ("without the i, > please"), you get used to it :-) And named by a John (no difficulties > there) and an Annabelle ("double L, E, please") I don't think it was in > any way governed by a desire for distinctive identity or took into > consideration my mother's lifelong battle to have her name spelt > correctly (both my parents have middle names that are distinctly > unusual, and both hid their middle names for most of their growing up > years as a result). It was simply a name they liked, and the spelling > they preferred. > > And my daughter's name is Shiara, not in a desire for a distinctive > identity but because it's a derivation of my own name (a > mispronunciation of the Italian form) that I heard as a teenager, and > liked enough to want to use it. And I *did* consider the unusualness of > it, but decided that seeing it written down would make the pronunciation > obvious, and hearing it said would make the spelling obvious. I was > wrong on both counts. > > Incidentally, I was well aware ahead of time, from the fact that my own > name's spelling is the least common version, that there would be a > downside to the distinctiveness of Shiara's name insofar as finding > items with her name printed on them (they don't exist!). But we found a > solution to that by making use of the times when a personally ordered > option is available. > > Clare > *************************************************** > Clare Pascoe Henderson > http://www.clergyabuseaustralia.org > Clergy Sexual Abuse in Australia > Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > *************************************************** > > > ------------------------------------------------------ > - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] > - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the > message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) > See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm > ------------------------------------------------------ > ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/insights-l-information.htm ------------------------------------------------------
