Saturday nights at six, I sit down in the family room with my husband to watch Keeping Up Appearances, a British comedy shown on PBS. I have only one thing in common with the social climbing Hyacinth–we both continually correct people’s pronunciation of our names. She haughtily insists her last name is “Bouquet, B-U-C-K-E-T.” Her long suffering husband said he was Richard Bucket until he married.
Dad named me Lolita with a long I sound like a girl who attended his country grade school. When I was growing up, people din’t know how to say my first name. In places such as a doctor’s waiting room, when my parents and I went for a check-up, the nurse would call, “Alex” and “Edith.” Then she looked at her clip board with a puzzled look on her face. I knew it was my turn.
In 1955, the year I graduated from high school, my problems began. Russian-American Vladimir Nabokov wrote the salacious, best-selling novel, Lolita. The twelve-year-old nymphet’s name was pronounced with a long E sound. Suddenly, everyone knew how to say my name…wrong. I politely respond, “I say Lol-I-ta.” I know there are a few others with a similar name, but, apparently, I’m the only one who pronounces it this way. I enjoy being unusual.
I also blame the novel for my rejection by two different world-wide businesses. When I applied to join Face Book several years ago, I was asked for a copy of my driver’s license to verify my name. While I was thinking that request over, I received notification I’d been accepted. Apparently, someone decided a seventy-year-old woman didn’t have ulterior motives.
A month ago, when our son was setting up my new computer, the company rejected my first name. I dug up an old, high school nickname to use instead. Earlier, they had no problem accepting payment with my credit card.
Dale Carnegie, author of the best seller, How to Win Friends and Influence People, said, “A person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
Do you have problems with people pronouncing or spelling your name?