About my name
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This is in reply to Joel's post about his name. Which is a reply to Alexandra Wolfe's post about names. Yes, I guess you could say this is another Blog Questions Challenge.
All the questions come from Alexandra, with the "Bonus fact" coming from Michael.
Do you like your name?
I do. It's a beautiful name. It's also not very common around here. When I grew up no one was called Elena. I have have come across a few others over the decades, though. Some spelled Ellena, some even pronounced like me.
Which leads perfectly to the next question...
Do people regularly misspell/ mispronounce your name?
Spelling doesn't seem to be a problem at all, but pronunciation? OMG let me tell you! My name gets mispronounced all the time. All. The. Time. It's been that way since forever. I gave up correcting people somewhere in high school. Even though, or maybe because I was so fed up with people mispronouncing my name even if I actually spoke it out loud, I just stopped. Only in recent years have I started to sometimes correct people again. I just want my name to be pronounced correctly, dammit.
You see, my name is pronounced with the stress on the second 'e'. A bit like the Spanish way. But most people stress the first 'e', which is more like the Italian way (and how many other Elenas I know about are pronounced). Some even stretch the first 'e' along with stressing it, which is the worst way you can pronounce my name. Seriously, don't do it!
I wrote about my name on the About page, and include phonetic scrpit as well as an audiofile with me pronouncing my name. (Yes, I'm gonna send you over there instead of repeating everything here.)
BTW, if for language/ dialect reasons you do not pronounce the letters/ sounds as I do, it's fine. As long as you stress the second 'e' all is good.
I also made it a policy to learn how to pronounce all my students' names correctly. Sometimes I need a long time and a lot of practice because my mouth is not used to certain movements, but that does not stop me. One of the saddest things kids say to me is: "In German my name is [insert German pronunciation of name], but in [insert language] it's [insert correct pronounciation of name]." And all I can think is: "No kid, it's ignorant people who don't give a shit about how to say your name correctly."
On the other hand... names are said to hold power. So maybe I should stop being annoyed and be glad people don't get it. If no one knows my real name (i.e. the correct pronunciation), no one can do me harm.
If you were going to change your name to anything else, what would you choose?
I'm not sure if I wanted that. I am pretty happy with Elena. However, I have picked another name for myself that I have used online for a bit. But I'll keep that to myself for now.
Do you go by your first name?
Yes. Though of course, some call me by my last name as well.
Do you have a middle name?
No. My parents say it was hard enough to pick that one name, that they didn't want to pick a second one. For a long time I was sad about it. My friends all had middle names, I thought that was so cool. But I'm ok with it now. I have a beautiful name and I don't need another one.
Do you have a nickname?
No. I always wanted one and even tried to nudge my friendds and family to use one when I was a kid. But the only thing I got was a nasty one from my cousin. Who's a great cousin! But I'll never forgive her that one.
Bonus fact
I like to believe I was named after the Spanish Infanta. But I think that's not really true. I have to ask my mom again.
And now you
I'd love to hear your thoughts on names, and your name in particular. Any name, your birth name, legal name, chosen name, internet name, etc. Please send me links to your replies.
This topic has been on my list for a long time. Because my name gets mispronounced so often, and because I see a lot of people not giving a damn about pronouncing other peoples' names correctly. It needed this challenge for me to finally write about it. So, thanks Joel!
- Elena.
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