There is a Russian-speaking stand-up comedian who used to start his act like this: My name is Idrak, my nationality is Talysh, and my religion is Shia. Everything that defines me is underlined with a red squiggle in Microsoft Word...
This post went straight to my heart. Everything you said is what I went through, even to the point where I felt ashamed for having the name I did. Even today someone emailed me “isa”. Like IT IS THREE LETTERS HOW CAN YOU GET IT WRONG. And more importantly, why are we feeling shame for our own names 😢. Thank you for writing this 🤍
For what it’s worth, I saw your name and immediately thought “one of my people!” When people say the spelling of Irish names is “crazy” or “makes no sense” it makes me sad because it’s literally a different language… We don’t expect English to function like Japanese. Your name is a gift. It’s presenting you a chance to grow, embrace who you are and be confident in that person. ❤️
Thank you, Caoilainn, this post hit the nail on the head. (May I also know how to pronounce your name?)
I came from a culture where having a surname is not a must. There are different ethnic groups in my home country, some have the last name indicating their clan/tribe, similar to the Western culture. But my ethnic group doesn't necessarily have a surname, or the members may have surnames but the word doesn't indicate genealogy, like in my case. My surname means "sky", so all three words in my name point to one meaning of the first daughter that's like a flower in the sky.
Name can be a good icebreaker topic since people have politely asked me how to pronounce it and I taught them how, and bonus point if they could roll the 'r' in Sekar, tongue-in-cheek I told them like the 'r' rolling in the Scottish accent. And then some people told me the meaning of their name in exchange, although the familiar names, but sometimes they got some other meanings.
I found that Mhairi can be pronounced 'Mari' or 'Vari', a good way to learn about other cultures, really.
I used to feel ashamed as well in the westernised world about my name (Sekar is my middle name, so in an attempt to survive in this world I just removed my first name for business purposes, unless the forms request a passport full name, which has my first-middle-last name in order). But as I meet more people, I realised there are so many ethnic backgrounds in the world that also 'suffer' from the standardised naming fields of first-last name and spelling.
Hi Sekar! At the top of the post I've recorded an audio version, in there you'll hear me pronounce my own name :) Interesting that your culture has optional surnames. I have to admit, this was fairly new to me until about 5-6 years ago. I had some colleagues who have just one name, and in our HR tooling and other systems, sometimes their name was duplicated (like: Caoilainn Caoilainn) because the system forced them to put in a first and a last name 🙄 Thanks so much for reading and sharing your experience 🩷
This is so touching and relatable. It brought me back to being a boy wanting a different name because nobody would pronounce it correctly or because people would make fun of it. Years of this awkward ritual of spelling out your name or using a fake one when you can’t be asked 😄 Thanks for celebrating special names like this 🧡
Gosh Caoilainn, I've read and enjoyed so much your work so far but this one in particular just hits differently; it took until my twenties to fully appreciate my name, and understand why my own mother hated people reverting to a nickname for me for their own ease. Especially living far from home most of my life with an Irish name, fewer people had come across it but it was a special link I had to my own language and history.
Grew up in very multicultural environments and yet found in most English-speaking contexts many people didn't bother to even ask, or try Googling which would help them, the pronunciation. Generally I found those of whom were less familiar with anglicised or names in English were more likely to just ask and at least attempt to pronounce/remember it properly - because having 'easy names' wasn't their default experience. At the very least, it helped make me even more aware of asking others when I meet or email about their pronunciation/spelling and encouraging others, especially colleagues, to do the same. Choosing not to go by a nickname especially at work has been a great lesson for me to not make myself smaller for those who will not bother with basic respect for others!
I love that your mother was really protective over your name and told you to avoid 'caving' to a nickname. A few times in my early 20s I found myself trying to think of nicknames to make it easier for people in work (also lived abroad) but it just felt so inauthentic.
You always remember people who make an effort, though. I remember starting a new job several years ago and found out that a week before I started my manager had stuck a post-it with the pronunciation and spelling of my name on his monitor and he had also ensured that everyone on the team could spell and say it correctly by the time my first day rolled around 🥺 It really is as you said - basic respect. Thank you so much for reading Aisling 🩷
As someone whose name is always mispronounced and spelled in a way to conveniently relate to belonging from a particular region here in India, this felt deeply personal <3
I relate to so many points you made here. It never crossed my mind to go by a nickname or my middle name as a child so now that I'm well into my 30s, my name is stuck. Depends on the day if I feel like chatting about it, though. It did push me to make sure my kids had unique but phonetically spelled names.
My daughter had a teacher argue with her about the pronunciation of her name! It's not even an unusual or difficult name, just has a silent letter in it.
I've struggled with my name, Caoilainn, my entire life, so I completely resonate with everything you've written. Not only is it difficult to pronounce, but it also reveals that I am a woman of colour and a Muslim woman.
This particular sentence really touched me: "Modern architecture is beige and minimal; our furniture is flat-packed, and now the heritage our names carry is being ironed out, too."
I often avoid giving people nicknames unless that’s what they prefer. We don’t need to have a shortcut for everything in life. I have friends who change their names to make it easier for others to pronounce, but honestly, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for my name to be pronounced correctly, especially after I’ve corrected someone multiple times. This really happens, especially at work. One of my old customers insisted on mispronouncing my name even after I corrected him at least 15 times.
I loved this Caoilainn! I especially loved the audio version - your voice is so lyrical. Thank you for sharing this - as someone with a last name that is constantly mispronounced or misspelled, it’s so true that it’s not that deep but it’s not that shallow either.
Relatable! I'm so glad the whole bit about colleagues spelling a name wrong in email doesn't just bother me. I didn't know if I was being overly sensitive. I worked at one location for 11 years, and this ALWAYS happened. People I worked with for 11 years would spell my name wrong even though it was in the auto signature on the email. They even threw me a baby shower right before I left (which was really nice and I appreciated it so much), but right on the baby shower sign in the staff room they even spelled my name incorrectly. I never understood it. I agree though that it does make us more compassionate towards other people's unique names and we try harder to get the spelling right!
Wow I can't believe they got it wrong on the sign 🥲 that is embarrassing.... for them 🤣 Yeah, it's interesting because you don't really understand it if you have a "simple" name. There is a lot of sensitivity around it because it is your identity. Thanks for reading, Breeann 🩵
I was at a party this weekend and someone asked me and a friend of mine whether, since both of us have unique names, we would give our theoretical children a more common name or something unique. She was sure she’d choose something uncommon, but I had a harder time making up my mind. It’s a gift to just stand out off the bat, but it’s also a burden to always be explaining it, spelling it, feeling like you have to justify it to others.
There is a Russian-speaking stand-up comedian who used to start his act like this: My name is Idrak, my nationality is Talysh, and my religion is Shia. Everything that defines me is underlined with a red squiggle in Microsoft Word...
Haha, love it!
That's so cool
This post went straight to my heart. Everything you said is what I went through, even to the point where I felt ashamed for having the name I did. Even today someone emailed me “isa”. Like IT IS THREE LETTERS HOW CAN YOU GET IT WRONG. And more importantly, why are we feeling shame for our own names 😢. Thank you for writing this 🤍
It's literally THREE LETTERS 👏 like hello people?! Thanks so much for reading Íse - your name is extremely beautiful!
For what it’s worth, I saw your name and immediately thought “one of my people!” When people say the spelling of Irish names is “crazy” or “makes no sense” it makes me sad because it’s literally a different language… We don’t expect English to function like Japanese. Your name is a gift. It’s presenting you a chance to grow, embrace who you are and be confident in that person. ❤️
Thank you so much for reading, Briana 💗
Thank you, Caoilainn, this post hit the nail on the head. (May I also know how to pronounce your name?)
I came from a culture where having a surname is not a must. There are different ethnic groups in my home country, some have the last name indicating their clan/tribe, similar to the Western culture. But my ethnic group doesn't necessarily have a surname, or the members may have surnames but the word doesn't indicate genealogy, like in my case. My surname means "sky", so all three words in my name point to one meaning of the first daughter that's like a flower in the sky.
Name can be a good icebreaker topic since people have politely asked me how to pronounce it and I taught them how, and bonus point if they could roll the 'r' in Sekar, tongue-in-cheek I told them like the 'r' rolling in the Scottish accent. And then some people told me the meaning of their name in exchange, although the familiar names, but sometimes they got some other meanings.
I found that Mhairi can be pronounced 'Mari' or 'Vari', a good way to learn about other cultures, really.
I used to feel ashamed as well in the westernised world about my name (Sekar is my middle name, so in an attempt to survive in this world I just removed my first name for business purposes, unless the forms request a passport full name, which has my first-middle-last name in order). But as I meet more people, I realised there are so many ethnic backgrounds in the world that also 'suffer' from the standardised naming fields of first-last name and spelling.
Hi Sekar! At the top of the post I've recorded an audio version, in there you'll hear me pronounce my own name :) Interesting that your culture has optional surnames. I have to admit, this was fairly new to me until about 5-6 years ago. I had some colleagues who have just one name, and in our HR tooling and other systems, sometimes their name was duplicated (like: Caoilainn Caoilainn) because the system forced them to put in a first and a last name 🙄 Thanks so much for reading and sharing your experience 🩷
This is so touching and relatable. It brought me back to being a boy wanting a different name because nobody would pronounce it correctly or because people would make fun of it. Years of this awkward ritual of spelling out your name or using a fake one when you can’t be asked 😄 Thanks for celebrating special names like this 🧡
Gosh Caoilainn, I've read and enjoyed so much your work so far but this one in particular just hits differently; it took until my twenties to fully appreciate my name, and understand why my own mother hated people reverting to a nickname for me for their own ease. Especially living far from home most of my life with an Irish name, fewer people had come across it but it was a special link I had to my own language and history.
Grew up in very multicultural environments and yet found in most English-speaking contexts many people didn't bother to even ask, or try Googling which would help them, the pronunciation. Generally I found those of whom were less familiar with anglicised or names in English were more likely to just ask and at least attempt to pronounce/remember it properly - because having 'easy names' wasn't their default experience. At the very least, it helped make me even more aware of asking others when I meet or email about their pronunciation/spelling and encouraging others, especially colleagues, to do the same. Choosing not to go by a nickname especially at work has been a great lesson for me to not make myself smaller for those who will not bother with basic respect for others!
I love that your mother was really protective over your name and told you to avoid 'caving' to a nickname. A few times in my early 20s I found myself trying to think of nicknames to make it easier for people in work (also lived abroad) but it just felt so inauthentic.
You always remember people who make an effort, though. I remember starting a new job several years ago and found out that a week before I started my manager had stuck a post-it with the pronunciation and spelling of my name on his monitor and he had also ensured that everyone on the team could spell and say it correctly by the time my first day rolled around 🥺 It really is as you said - basic respect. Thank you so much for reading Aisling 🩷
As someone whose name is always mispronounced and spelled in a way to conveniently relate to belonging from a particular region here in India, this felt deeply personal <3
Thanks so much for reading, Paurush! :)
HARD relate 😅
Knew you would 🤣🩷
I relate to so many points you made here. It never crossed my mind to go by a nickname or my middle name as a child so now that I'm well into my 30s, my name is stuck. Depends on the day if I feel like chatting about it, though. It did push me to make sure my kids had unique but phonetically spelled names.
My daughter had a teacher argue with her about the pronunciation of her name! It's not even an unusual or difficult name, just has a silent letter in it.
Yep.... I've also sadly had people tell me my name "should" be pronounced a certain way, as if they are the expert 🤣
I've struggled with my name, Caoilainn, my entire life, so I completely resonate with everything you've written. Not only is it difficult to pronounce, but it also reveals that I am a woman of colour and a Muslim woman.
This particular sentence really touched me: "Modern architecture is beige and minimal; our furniture is flat-packed, and now the heritage our names carry is being ironed out, too."
I often avoid giving people nicknames unless that’s what they prefer. We don’t need to have a shortcut for everything in life. I have friends who change their names to make it easier for others to pronounce, but honestly, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for my name to be pronounced correctly, especially after I’ve corrected someone multiple times. This really happens, especially at work. One of my old customers insisted on mispronouncing my name even after I corrected him at least 15 times.
"We don’t need to have a shortcut for everything in life" - couldn't have said it better myself ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
I loved this Caoilainn! I especially loved the audio version - your voice is so lyrical. Thank you for sharing this - as someone with a last name that is constantly mispronounced or misspelled, it’s so true that it’s not that deep but it’s not that shallow either.
🫶🏻 Thank you so much for reading, Claudia
when people spell my name wrong in emails or messages I'm always like ??? it's RIGHT THERE
easy common names like ikea furniture?! I never thought of that! that's an interesting take! And I loved listening to you reading out the article :)
Haha I thought it was a good one for audio so people can hear me read my name out loud 🤣
You nailed it so gracefully
Relatable! I'm so glad the whole bit about colleagues spelling a name wrong in email doesn't just bother me. I didn't know if I was being overly sensitive. I worked at one location for 11 years, and this ALWAYS happened. People I worked with for 11 years would spell my name wrong even though it was in the auto signature on the email. They even threw me a baby shower right before I left (which was really nice and I appreciated it so much), but right on the baby shower sign in the staff room they even spelled my name incorrectly. I never understood it. I agree though that it does make us more compassionate towards other people's unique names and we try harder to get the spelling right!
Wow I can't believe they got it wrong on the sign 🥲 that is embarrassing.... for them 🤣 Yeah, it's interesting because you don't really understand it if you have a "simple" name. There is a lot of sensitivity around it because it is your identity. Thanks for reading, Breeann 🩵
I was at a party this weekend and someone asked me and a friend of mine whether, since both of us have unique names, we would give our theoretical children a more common name or something unique. She was sure she’d choose something uncommon, but I had a harder time making up my mind. It’s a gift to just stand out off the bat, but it’s also a burden to always be explaining it, spelling it, feeling like you have to justify it to others.