Names or…

The mangling thereof.

I grew up in an English-speaking western world.

Then I moved to Europe and learned French. Still a Western World and although words and pronunciation entirely different, the basic ideas and particularly names remained legible and pronounceable. Then I met and married a German. Now there’s a logical language: need a new word? Simply put two already-existing ones together and voilà a new word that makes perfect sense for the new situation and doesn’t require (as do both English and French) an entire phrase to explain a new concept. Still as 60% of English and in particular names in the USA are of German origin, recognizable.

Where I first encountered problems was during my years working for the Luthern church here in Geneva. If Asian names were kind of o.k. (I had spent three years in Hawaii as a teenager), African ones were beyond me. It took quite some time before I had even a hope of saying them correctly never mind spelling them. And I am sure that they, too, faced the great divide when it came to some of our names!

Upon marrying I took my husband’s name, a double-barreled one at that. This posed problems as in Switzerland the last half of a hyphenated name is usually the woman’s maiden name. I will not mention the number of times I had to return official documents or credit and bank cards for the correction of my name. Then computerization hit the world.

The first computers were limited to about 7 letters maximum; anything thereafter got truncated so I was often very frustrated when formulas asked for my name, but wouldn’t take it, never mind the hyphen. It was particularly problematic in the travel industry and I basically ended up having a variety of last names depending upon the airline. Truncated I was kind of o.k. with, but one of the very best, that continues to this day, was KLM’s

I am Mme. Sxxxxx Leaf Fen.

Every time I get an email address to me I always wonder if I can’t go be a Leaf in a Fen – that would at least make sense.