I too am thinking about names. This afternoon I drove to an assisted living community (25 miles away but took me an hour and a half to get there given traffic leaving Philly, ugh) to visit friends of mine who are now 91 and 94 years old. Rennie and I taught together for 9 years at the beginning of my career and the end of hers. She was my closest colleague friend for those years. I shared with them the overall theme of the institute and this afternoon's panel discussion. When he was a young boy Si's family had fled from Poland to Germany and then managed to get out of Germany to the US even though the US was not taking Jewish refugees. (His family had a US government contact who owed them a favor,) Si then went back to Germany in the US army and was with the army group that liberated Buchenwald. He was telling me that actually his birth name was NOT Si but rather a very Jewish/Polish sounding name. When he arrived in Germany one reason he was constantly bullied and beaten was because his name "marked" him. He changed it to Si and never went back to his original name.
One of the reasons I like this overall topic is because I don't think there are clear answers on this. I'm always more interested in dilemmas that aren't absolute. If someone immigrating to the US wants to change her name to one that sounds more "American" it might be for ease of not always having to tell people how to pronounce her name, it might be to assimilate... Part of what I want to understand is whether she is trying to "deny" her birth/childhood culture or "embrace" a new culture. Are those different? Are they contradictory? I'm wondering what it takes to understand if this choice is "voluntary." And if we're teachers with children who are or aren't changing their names what's our role in responding to this, particularly in whether we're actively encouraging them to keep their birth names.
I believe, as your friend Si's story suggests, that your name is your choice, and your family's. (And as I write that, it crosses my mind that in some cultures, the idea of a name as a choice, once a baby has been given a name, may well seem ridiculous. Yet there are other cases where you take a new "adult" name when coming of age. And sometimes you have a secret personal name known only to your family and closest friends.)
ReplyDeleteA century or so ago, I think it was typical for American teachers to insist that immigrant children change their names to something more American-sounding. Your teacher might say, "I will call you Sally," and all you could answer was "Yes, ma'am." A similiar example (admittedly, I take it largely from Masterpiece Theater) was that a servant in an upper-class British household might be given a more "servantlike" name by his or her new employer. "Miranda is too fancy. We'll call you Mary."
Immigration officials might also do this. The story is told of a Jewish man named Sean Ferguson, an Irish-sounding name. When someone asked him about this, he replied that his friends had already suggested an "American-sounding" name which he should give officials. But he was so nervous that when he was asked, he answered in Yiddish, "Schon vergessen" (I've already forgotten).
We have a large Korean population in our school. I had one student (two different years) whose first name was Jun Byung. That remained his official name on school records, but he was constantly experimenting with names that seemed more American to him. One year he introduced himself as Kevin. Then, because he was taking Spanish, he decided he would be Miguel. The next year, he was JB. His Korean friends still called him Jun.
I was thinking also of the Iranian-American author, Firuzeh Dumas (wrote Funny in Farsi, husband is French). Her book is a humorous memoir, in which she has a good deal to say about names. I heard her on a book tour; she's an excellent speaker. One of her anecdotes was about sitting in a hospital waiting room as the receptionist called out names of those who were at last to be seen by the doctor. Many of those waiting with her at least seemed to her to be fellow immigrants. At last it was her turn, and the receptionist called, "Fuzzy Dumb-a**." She felt that her fellow waiters all looked relieved that, strange as their names might seem in an American context, at least they weren't THAT bad.
When I got married, I did not hesitate to take my husband's surname (Martin, changed at immigration from Radunsky), because my maiden name is Ridenour and no one ever said or spelled it correctly. And that in turn was Americanized in spelling from Reitenauer.
So, I was going to conclude that your name is what you say it is (as long as you're not trying to hide after committing a crime) and it's no one else's business. But perhaps instead I conclude that your name may reflect ongoing negotiations, intrapersonal and/or interpersonal.