‘Po-tay-to, po-tah-to’ is one thing. But what if it’s your first name no one can agree how to pronounce? Well, that’s a different story altogether. So here are the top 10 signs your name shares the same contentiousness as that silly tuber:
1. You always feel like Hermione Granger
“It’s Leviosa, not Leviosar.” Every time you correct someone, you sound like Hermione in divination class.
I once had an Uber driver pick me up from the airport at 3 a.m. because he “thought I was of middle-eastern descent.” The driver was middle eastern. This may be the one time in my life when my odd name paid off. PS Thank you to the Uber driver who went way out of his way on my behalf, even when he discovered I was Irish American.
3. You wonder what on earth your parents were thinking
Apparently, my parents combined two names to get mine. My dad wanted ‘Alexandretta’ (a city from one of the Indiana Jones movies) and my mom wanted ‘Lilly.’ Somehow, in their minds, putting these two together resulted in Allia. Yeah… I don’t understand it either, trust me.
“Oh, mommy! Maybe this store will have a keychain with my name on it!” Growing up, all I wanted was a travel knick-knack from a tourist shop on vacation. I went into every store with the hopes that I would find my name, and I always came out disappointed. To this day I still look for my name, if I have the chance, to see if ‘Allia’ has become popular enough to be printed on a small license plate somewhere… it hasn’t.
5. You have heard at least five different pronunciations of your name
Okay, my name is only five letters long. So how many possible ways could it be pronounced? Let me count the ways I have heard thus far:
“Uh - lee - yuh” (not correct)
“Al - lie - yuh” (not correct)
“All - lee - yuh” (not correct)
“Aye - Lee - yuh” (not correct)
“Al - lee - yuh” (Yes, correct!)
6. You face that awkward moment of whether to correct authority figures or not
Roll call at school is always a little uncomfortable. When my name is called, it is always pronounced incorrectly. Always. So do I correct the teacher and risk alienating myself, and possibly embarrassing the professor, in front of a room full of students? Or do I just roll with it?
7. You always know when your name is next on the attendance list
Teacher: “*marks the attendance of the kid whose name falls before yours on the attendance list*”
Pause….. pause….. Pause……
Me: “It’s Allia… yes, I am here.”
8. They still get it wrong the next several times, even when you have corrected them
Eventually, you just give up. At least your friends know how to pronounce it, so they laugh at you when the teachers get it wrong every time.
*Cue telling the long story about how your parents just decided to get extremely creative when you were born to someone who really doesn’t care but was trying to be nice to hide the fact that they absolutely butchered the pronunciation*
10. It helps you be remembered… in an ironic way
People may not remember how to say it, but they know you’re that kid with the “weird, hard-to-pronounce name.”
To everyone who relates to this... We are all in this together.
