My name is my identity. It’s always been uniquely mine, and oddly enough, I’ve never been ashamed of it. Mind you, I was ashamed of an awful lot, but I always carried my name with pride. I was always surprised when people didn’t like their given names. I fancy mine. Mostly, I appreciate that my parents never anglicized our names. They honor our heritage and the richness of our culture that we left behind.
It’s musical to hear someone pronounce my name correctly.
Someone recently suggested I change my name to make it easier on others. Ummm…you can imagine my reaction. I didn’t attempt to hide my WTAF face. Can you even fathom suggesting to the only woman of color in the room to change her name to make it easier on others? Just when I think I’ve seen it all, people continue to perplex me. I was not gentle in my response when I remarked that would be a hard pass. Prioritizing comfort at my expense…this is a byproduct of the system of white supremacy and what Isabel Wilkerson means when she writes about the dominant caste. Understanding systems versus individuals is imperative here.
Ilina. Ee-lee-nuh Ilina.
Now that’s not so hard, is it? We do become accustomed to pronounce more difficult names in different contexts (a certain ACC basketball coach comes to mind). I lived in Wisconsin and managed the plethora of Polish and Czech names. And when I had trouble, I simply asked for the person to properly pronounce her name so I could get it right. There is no shame in asking. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it when people ask me how to pronounce my name. No sweat. I’ll repeat it as many times as you need. And chances are high I’ll go off on my font issues.
But not a day goes by that someone gets it wrong, as in people who know me and should know better. A flippant response of, “Oh, close enough” is utterly disrespectful. And then there’s the, “Well can I call you…instead?” Nope. My name is Ilina. I’ll be patient as you learn to pronounce it, but don’t be dismissive and demand something easier for your tongue.
This is where fonts come in. And common sense goes out.
Let me break it down. My name begins with a capital letter i. In a serif font world, that looks like I-l-i-n-a. Ilina. This is when people see a double lowercase l and yet write my name as Llina. You can imagine how many times a day I hear about emails being bounced back. If my name began with an L, I would use the capital L. I even had a professor once tell me that my name looked like the word “llama” so that’s what he thought of when he called on me. Charming. If I had a magic wand I would banish all sans serif fonts. Arial be damned! Times New Roman and Georgia all the way.
Grappling with my identity is hard enough in this world.
And listen, it would not be hyperbolic to say that literally every single day someone gets my name wrong when it is clearly spelled in front of them, as in I have signed my name, it’s on my business card (serif font even!), or it’s in my signature. And yes, this happens after I have kindly corrected people. It’s even happened on holiday cards. If I’m on your card list, I should hope you know my name. I wish I were making this up.
The examples below represent just a couple days of butchering my name. Keep in mind this is simply the written errors. The misprounciations abound past my ability to keep up. Don’t get me started on being the only kid on a field trip who doesn’t get a personalied tchotchke from the Mill Mountain Zoo gift shop.
So what’s in a name?
Everything.