Moments of Permanence - We should be clear on certain things: Names, identity, and why certain people need to shut up hard

From: willow Date: June 15th, 2009 01:18 pm (UTC) (Link)

I did an entry on this in my other journal and called it 'Name Power'. Because to me it really did feel like something out of fantasy tropes, where a name is who you are, and the more people mispronounce it, the more they're trying to mold who you are into how they see you.

And also by denying you your true name, they're denying you power. Which explains why they get so agitated when someone insists on correcting them / boldly stating their personhood via how their name is said or pronounced and/or being unashamed to have an 'ethnic' name.

That was another side of it, names as passwords to access in society. Have the wrong name, or pronounce it the 'wrong way' and doors close.

Took me an hour to find this - I didn't have it bookmarked: Comedy Sketch On Names (South Asian/East Indian)

(Reply) (Thread)

From: sami Date: June 15th, 2009 02:31 pm (UTC) (Link)

I like that clip. Nice inversion.

And yes. I remember one evening a friend of mine took a group of us (her high school friends) to a Ba'hai gathering, and we were introduced to a large number of Iranian people. I couldn't tell you any of their names now (it was well over ten years ago), but at the time, with each introduction, I went through my usual practice when meeting people with non-Anglo names: listen carefully, repeat it back as faithfully as I can, accept corrections, try to get it right.

What really sticks in my memory is the way those people all loved me for it. They all decided I was wonderful and reacted with delight and a lot more praise than I deserved, just for trying to get their names correct.

Except that I understand why they thought I was remarkable, because way, way too few people do that at all. It's so *rude*.

I meant to mention another form of name-overpowering I encountered a few months ago, from an older guy at church. The first time we met, I introduced myself as Sami. The second time he met me, he called me Samantha. (Which meant he took several tries to get my attention, because I didn't realise he thought he was calling my name at all.)

It took some discussion to establish that no, really, it's Sami, not Samantha. (Which I've encountered before, and which also annoys me: my original first name, which I do not use any more if I can help it, was Rae. Three letters. On a large number of occasions, I've had to bring out ID to prove that it isn't short for Raelene or Rachel or any other name, it's JUST THAT.)

Meanwhile, a friend of mine, whose name is Jennifer, and who goes by Jen, is periodically aggravated by people who insist on calling her Jenny, even after she's expressed a preference that they not do so. It happens after she introduces herself as Jen or as Jennifer, and that's also a great wrongness to me. You also don't get to decide what *form* of someone's name you'll use. (Other victims of this I know: My friend Elizabeth, who prefers that to Liz, and Chas, whose name is NOT Charlie. In relatively formal situations, he uses Charles. Charlie is NOT HIS NAME.)

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

From: willow Date: June 15th, 2009 02:44 pm (UTC) (Link)

A very short list of people get to call me Wils. I decide who's on that list. You (general plural you) don't get to decide you want on that list and you will call me by that name. People who do that, I tell them point blank, whether or not it will embarrass them that they don't have permission to call me that, and they know it!

And only one person in the world gets to call me a derivative nickname from Willow.

I've realized some people think, since Willow is not my birthname, that it doesn't matter what form they use or how they say it, because it's not my 'real' name so why would I care how they mangled it or not.

And that always makes me want to smack people, because for me, the name a person chooses to go by - the name they self identify with is far more important than a name their parents decided on due to family tradition or just because they thought it was cool.

There's a difference to me, between a name put to you as an infant and a name you choose for yourself as a sentient, sapient being with free will and choice.

The only people who call me by my birthname are medical professionals reading off official documentation. Even my mother calls me by a nickname. One my siblings decided on, as easier to say, when they were babies.

A person's name can change during their lifetime from how they pronounce it, to what nicknames they attach to it, or tolerate etc.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

From: sami Date: June 15th, 2009 03:22 pm (UTC) (Link)

I've realized some people think, since Willow is not my birthname, that it doesn't matter what form they use or how they say it, because it's not my 'real' name so why would I care how they mangled it or not.

And that always makes me want to smack people, because for me, the name a person chooses to go by - the name they self identify with is far more important than a name their parents decided on due to family tradition or just because they thought it was cool.

There's a difference to me, between a name put to you as an infant and a name you choose for yourself as a sentient, sapient being with free will and choice.

YES THIS.

Sami is not the name I was born with. The name I was born with makes me actively unhappy. I am, in fact, going to change it legally - at some point when, not least, I no longer have a pending court case, because that just seems like it could get messy.

Some people seem to dislike this, but for me, it's tied into something very important, which is: I get to decide who I am. My parents don't. And that includes changing a name I have never in my entire life actually liked. The name I was born with never felt like me. Sami does. Sami IS.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

From: rainbow Date: June 15th, 2009 07:05 pm (UTC) (Link)

The name I was born with makes me actively unhappy. I am, in fact, going to change it legally

I so get this.

Chris started using "Chris" in the mid 70s because she'd always hated "Cindy" (and there were some people who had issues with it and tried to keep calling her Cindy. Mama A, otoh, was perfectly fine with it, and suggested simply ignoring them until they used the right name *g* )

Chris changed the body's name legally in the mid 80s -- and since she'd used our current surname for 10+ years by then with friends and had met our birth father recently and didn't want to use his name, she changed both first and last and just kept the middle.

I may not be that Chris (I'm Carys or Boo to the people who are closest to me, not Chris or Cats [Cats was the name that meant all of us]), but the legal name and "Cats" is still mine in a way the birth name never would be, because it's what soemone(s) in the body chose.

(Reply) (Parent)

From: elspethdixon Date: June 15th, 2009 04:07 pm (UTC) (Link)

I've found that I use different nicknames for different circumstances. Elspeth is my name in fandom. Liz is my name IRL. Elizabeth is my name in legal/formal settings. Beth, Betty, Betsy, Bess, Libby, and Eliza are not my name. I don't mind Elspeth being shortened to "Els," though, which I've seen people do more than once because they can't remember how to spell it.

I had a teacher in 6th grade who insisted on calling me "Beth" (instead of Elizabeth or Liz -- that was before I'd started going by Elspeth), and one customer at a former workplace who called me "Lisa," but both of them were old enough to be my grandparents and correcting them felt like it would have been rude. Someone closer to my age, I would have corrected (plus, I eventually realized that said customer actually was calling me "Liz" and his accent was putting a stress on the sibulant that just made it sound like "Lisa," whereupon I was really glad that I had never corrected him).

However, being called by a different nickname than the one I use isn't as annoying, IMO, as what one of my high school teachers used to do, which was refuse to use nicknames or call people by anything other than their legal first name at all. No "Zach" instead of Isaac, no "Liz" instead of Elizabeth, and definately no going by your middle name (every time he'd take attendance for the first week, he'd read out "William [lastname]" and there'd be a resounding silence, as everyone in the classroom stared at one another and tried to remember who on earth William was. Including William himself, whose middle name was Kenneth and who'd gone by "Kenny" since kindergarten).

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

From: sami Date: June 15th, 2009 04:19 pm (UTC) (Link)

That's just being a jerk because you can.

Almost a shame he didn't have to deal with a family at my school. (There were a lot of them. ETA: Not all from the same *nuclear* family - cousins and things.) The family was from the Philippines, I think it was, and had some seriously Catholic traditions, so every girl in the family had the first name Maria.

Unsurprisingly, they went by their middle names, because those were actually different.

Edited 2009-06-15 04:20 pm (UTC)

(Reply) (Parent)

From: sqbr Date: June 16th, 2009 01:13 am (UTC) (Link)

Oh wow now I'm imagining them as Charlie and Jenny. That really is wrong :)

People sometimes call me Sophia and that annoys me because, again, not my name.

(Reply) (Parent)

From: sqbr Date: June 16th, 2009 12:44 am (UTC) (Link)

Oh that's a wonderful clip :)

(Reply) (Parent)