Today, two of the letter I’ve read have had to do with names. Or rather, one was an update on Ask A Manager about noames while the other was about something completely diffirent, but the Slate commenters made merciless fun of the names used. And they weren’t even that odd. One was an unusual spelling of a common name and the other was more of a last name, but it still wasn’t that strange.
There were so many comments about the names. So. Many. It really annoyed me. I will admit that I’m sensitive to names because mine is weird and has been mispronounced so many times. I have to give a friendly mnemonic for it, “Minna as in Minnesota” which really helps. It’s funny, though. My name is strange, yes, but it’s not that weird if you look at it logically. Words like dinner and winnow get the ‘inn’ part just fine. Throw an ‘M’ in the front and an ‘ah’ at the end like any other name that ends with ‘a’, and you’re good.
If you’re Taiwanese, then it’s pronounced ‘Mee-NAH’, said very rapidly. My parents call me that, so any white people who have heard them say it that way call me that, but with no tonal accents to it–which is really weird! I barely recognize it as my name.
South Asian people pronounce it more like Meh-na with no accent. Then, there are the people who for some unfathomable reason think it’s Myna, like the bird. WHich, WHAT??? That is not on. At all.
Back in the day, I would correct people. I did not want Westerners calling me anything but the first one. It was my American name, and I wanted people to learn it. It’s not really that hard though it’s not a name you hear often. Or ever. I never could find anything with my name on it. No little license plates or key rings or anytihng else. I hated my name when I was a kid because it was so weird. Other kids made fun of it and nobody could pronounce it correctly.
I got an endless string of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Minnetonka, and every other iteration. And my favorite–Minnesota Fats. By favorite, I mean, fuck you very much. I had a teacher I adored who made a joke about ‘Winna with Minna’. It was supposed to be a positive tihng, but of course, it kicked off the kids making other rhymes with my name that weren’t as positive.
The year before this, I tried to go by a shortened version of my middle name. Not even the most popular nickname for my common middle name, but a rarely-used one. My teacher that year was great as well. He used the name I requested he call me, but I never responded because I was not used to it. I went back to my given name soon after, and I was resigned to being made fun of for the rest of my life.
Then, I went to college at St. Olaf, where every other person had a name that was some version of Kris. Chris. Kristin, Kirsten, Christian, Krissie, Kristine, Christine, and every other permutation.
I love my name now. It’s strong, distinctive, and it works well in both cultures. It is a tribute to the state in which I was born, and it’s beautiful in both languages. I don’t care so much about how it’s pronounced these days. I know who I am, so whatever. Again, it’s not MYNA like the bird, but anything else is close enough.