Dear Meghan Trainor,
I would like my name back, the whole thing. Meghan Elizabeth Trainor, you took my name, Megan Elizabeth Trainor, and you have made my life hell since your first single.
I was originally excited for your first single and wished you only good thoughts. But I was hoping you would be a one hit wonder so that I could claim what was rightfully mine. You did not stop at one hit, or two, or three. You just released a new album and have continued to inconvenience my life. You also took a few things from me:
1. When I become a famous novelist, I can’t use my name because then they might think you wrote it and that’s not cool. My initials aren’t cool enough to stand alone like J.K. Rowling. My options are between my middle name or confirmation name. Unfortunately Frances Trainor, my mother's name, or Elizabeth Trainor, my aunt's name, are already taken.
2. I had brown hair first, and I am convinced that if anything here should happen I should get to keep what was given to me at birth. My Irish heritage allows for natural red highlights in the sun and healthy dark brown the rest of the year. You dyed your hair brown. Please go back to blonde.
3. When you won your Grammy, I was terribly upset. I spent the whole walk back to my house yelling about how now that you really are somebody, my name will never be mine again. I went so far as to yell that you may have a Grammy, but I have a college education. Even that statement was stripped of me when someone pointed out I still have a year left at my university.
- Although your songs are catchy, they don’t vibe with the carefully constructed persona I have created. While you look like a Target commercial in music videos, I am a T-shirt sporting, pale, Sperry-loving person. You are too upbeat to have this name and you are ruining the good name with skinny shaming. Everyone is beautiful, I don’t care about your size, sex, or gender.
- I love my name; it rolls off the tongue and is pleasing to the ears. Megan Elizabeth Trainor. My friends used to yell it down the high school hallway to get my attention. It is uniquely my own, seeing as Megan was a common name for our age, and Trainor encompasses my siblings and I at any given moment. Now, I cringe when my name is asked. I offer my last name and hope that suffices.
Although you have taken what is essential to my identity, you have put my friends and family in some funny situations. My second cousin goes around his school saying he is related to Megan Trainor, and he isn’t wrong. A mix up at my sister’s college orientation caused for a boy to think she was related to you. Everyone has a bad joke about my name now. Many conversations have been started from my name and many ask what I think about your music.
Quite frankly, I’d rather see my name on the cover of a book than Target commercial.
Yours truly,
Megan Trainor
