The naming of cats...

[ceebeegee]

Inspired by Duncan's post, I flipped through Racheline's LJ and it made me think of something. I have to say, I get a little irked with people with unusual names who make a big fuss when strangers mispronounce their name. And I say this as someone whose name gets mispronounced all the time--I get called Carla, Clare, Cara, Sara, what-have-you. In fact someone at work constantly does this, and it doesn't bother me. Who cares? The fact is, most people have more important things to worry about in their lives than to go through lists of possible names thinking about how to say them IF they ever meet someone with that name. It's like when I was on the ship, and these two Bulgarian guys were complaining to me how none of the (past 70, American) passengers knew anything about their country. I replied that people tend to know what they need to know and most Americans don't need to know about Bulgaria on a daily basis. The beauty was that they didn't know much about America either.

One instance Racheline cited was at an audition--for God's sake! It's an audition, people are stressed and rushed--they don't care about how interesting and unusual your name is. You're just another person on a list to them. As long as you knew they meant you, be happy. And if it bothers you that much, change your name to something more common. I personally love my name, I especially like that it's unusual--I am always the only Clara in a group--and mispronunciation goes with the territory.

I don't know, it just irritates me. I see the subtext as "I'm SPECIAL! I'm UNIQUE! I'll force you to acknowledge my uniqueness by pouting when you mispronounce my name." You're not special until you do something special. Your name doesn't mean shit except to you. Stop assuming strangers care about you.

Comments

[wonderpanther.livejournal.com]

People always get Seth's name wrong and he finds it amusing. He has been called:
1) Scott - most common
2) Zed - not even sure this is a name
3) Sean

I find it pretty funny because Seth is a pretty easy name...so I thought.

My name is pretty regular, too...the only time I was slightly irked was when someone called me Richard.

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

Zed--that's how the English and French call the letter "Z." Zeb is short for Zebediah, an Old Testament name. Maybe they were thinking that.

[minstrel70.livejournal.com]

Zed: the Canucks say it that way too. I work with enough of them to be quite thoroughly annoyed by it now. :)

[planga.livejournal.com]

Pulp Fiction, which was a movie popular with the kids some years back, had a character named Zed (Who's chopper is this? Zed's. Who's Zed? Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead.)

I just decided to search for the name "Zed Smith." Apparently it is a name. Ah, here we go, it's short for Zedekiah.

ZEDEKIAH m Biblical
Pronounced: ze-de-KIE-a
Means "justice of YAHWEH" in Hebrew. This was last king of Judah as told in the Old Testament.

Hooray for internet!

-Chris "wheee" Combs

[wonderpanther.livejournal.com]

The true pronounciation would to tz-de-KIE-a. So I guess the name would be Tzed. Tzedek is justice (an approximate translation)in Hebrew.

Hooray for being bilingual!