Whose name is it, anyway?

For years, I greeted the receptionist of a company I frequented “Babe”, because whenever I was about to call her by name, my mind would start an argument with me.  “That’s not her name!” it would freak out; “Look at her. Does she look like a Susan to you? You forgot her name, didn’t you? Just call her babe and save us the embarrassment!” This was a sassy, petite, young lady, who had multicoloured streaks in her hair and tattoos up and down her arms. Her name was Susan. She looked like a biker fairy. Most Susans look nothing like inked Sprites. It felt wrong to call her Susan, the same kind of wrong I felt when I discovered my cousin’s name is Mary-Fatima, and not Tiny, as I had thought my entire life. Apparently Tiny is a nickname she acquired in childhood due to her small stature. Only at work does she introduce herself as Mary-Fatima. Why? Because her ID says so.

Names are powerful and evocative. Do you know a leading man called Neville? Of course not, Neville is Brad’s awkward sidekick. The history, intentions and hopes behind a name are its true the source of its substance, not the Department of Home Affairs’ stationery.

We call Thing 1 Bombie. That is the name she uses to introduce herself, and it is the name she painstakingly learned to scrawl across her art and birthday cards. The past few weeks she’s been in a battle of wills with her teacher, who keeps on telling her that Bombie is not her real name. This has incredibly distressing to my child, because absolutely everybody outside of her class calls her Bombie.

Thanks to the missionaries many Black South Africans have “Christian” names, often ones they can hardly pronounce. Occasionally we’ll even use a noun like Queen, or an adjective such as Happy. I grew up with a Lee-zen-eh, only to discover in adulthood seeing her name in print that it is actually Liz-Anne. Many a Mar-fee turned out to be Murphy. White South Africans are just as challenged in pronouncing African names, the difference is that seldom do Mr. and Mrs. Taylor feel the need to name their daughter Nonhlanhla. So it is the melanated citizens who have the unique experience of having strangers invalidate their names. If someone introduces themselves as Pen-eh-low-p, do you say; “Oh, you mean mean Penélope ” or do you call them as they introduced themselves?

Does my daughter’s schoolteacher get to decide which of her names is “real”?

I try to not fight my kid’s battles, but I do give her tips. I told her to inform her teacher that she will not be responding to Lee-bow-nay anymore, because that is not her name, her name is Lebone. Seeing as we are being pedantic about names.