When I was in sixth grade, I let my homeroom teacher call me the wrong name for almost seven months. An interning student from the nearby community college had come in to assist our teacher. She had asked me how to pronounce my name before reading it off the attendance sheet. I told her the proper pronunciation and my homeroom teacher had overheard. He was shocked. Why would someone go so long without correcting the pronunciation of their own name? I'll tell you why, Mr. Daniels. It's because I did. I told my teacher about three times and he still didn't get it right. So I gave up.
"Just three times?" you ask.
Technically, no. Because I've tried to correct people countless amount of times since I started kindergarten.
My name is not that difficult, as a friend later proved to me. Remo and I were grabbing lunch in the dining hall during my first semester at VT. When he found out that I have two different pronunciations of my name (one for Indians who ask and another one for everyone else). He was thrown off by this and decided to conduct a little experiment. He turned around and asked the kid behind us to say 'Nivedha' about seven or eight times before letting him go.
"See?" Remo asked, the pride visible on his beaming face.
To Remo, the whole thing was just a fun joke and to the kid behind us, it was two weirdos who wouldn't leave him alone. But to me, it was identity-altering.
My name is not hard. Maybe it's challenging for you to say, but that's not my fault. And guess what? It's all relative. Try going to India and telling someone that your name is Elizabeth or Michael. No one will be able to say it right. They will try, sure, but you will give up way before that, trust me.
But we are not in India, we're in America. So here's the thing. When an immigrant cannot pronounce an 'easy' name like Liz or Mike, you laugh. Maybe you roll your eyes or get annoyed. But reverse the situation. In the same circumstance, the immigrant tells an American their name and the American cannot pronounce it. Yet, it's the immigrant's fault for having a ridiculous name. It's still their fault.
So my point in all this is that there is no ordinary. There are no 'easy' names so don't write of kids or coworkers or students with 'hard' names. And to my fellow kiddos with a 'hard' name: don't let anyone mess it up. Your name is beautiful and so is everything else about you. You deserve to be called what you want to be called. If they're wrong, correct them. Keep correcting them. Don't give up.
Names are powerful. And so are you.
