Man, I got teased a ton for my name when I was in elementary school -early '60s well before the Summer of Love and unusal names started popping up. I got "isn't that a boy's name?" "Donkey" the always popular "Donald Duck" and then later in high school thanks to Helen Reddy "Delta Dawn". The worst was during the Eve Plumb movie-of-the-week "Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway"...sheesh!

My mom's nickname is Toots, nothing close to her real name (Ruth) because when they were bringing her home from the hospital my aunt (at 6) said she had "cute little tootsies" and it stuck. My cousins still call her Toots (and mom's 70 now!)

I do this at least once a goddamn week, because the world at large doesn't seem to grasp that yes, I want to be adressed by the single syllable that I used in my introduction.

See, if I had to meet a person a week I'd be touchy on principle.

Well, okay, I meet more than a person a week because of the krav teaching thing, but at least I get to tell them I'm not going to remember them from Adam. I like to step up to the plate like that.

I guess it's the processing that makes them burp back out the wrong name. They'd have to make a whole new nameplate for Steph, and they have this nifty Stephanie right here that they could just dust off.

I had a bear of a time spelling my name to someone on the phone the other day. She kept saying "e-i-t-a?" and I kept saying "No. i-t-a." (thinking "No e. i-t-a") would be too confusing. I finally got her to accept with "Just i-t-a." At which point she says "But it's pronounced ita?" Sweetie, you're thinking too hard.

For me, it's people who've had to copy my name from my spelling of it and write it down wrong with the reference right there, or the people who write it down themselves when I'm not spelling it for them and then read it back to me wrong. Dude. You write what you hear, then read what you hear.

Perhaps I have a migraine and hate people right now.

I dated a guy in college who called himself J.A., because he didn't like his given first and middle names. When people asked him what it stood for, he always replied, "Junior Achievement. My parents wanted me to succeed."

Sometimes people believed him.

I seem give people completely random and nonsensical nicknames. Like the time I renamed our friend Todd to Bertram Woogums the III. Everyone calls him Woogums now, and he answers to it.

Heh. My friend Farrah, who is, of course, nothing like Farrah Fawcett, in that she is a black Hatian lesbian butchy-type girl, is occasionally known as "Tad" to our friends, because we like to tease her that secretly, inside, she is a straight white preppy male. Dude. She plays *squash*.

Dude. She plays *squash*.

My sister loves squash. I've only ever thought of it in terms of "at least we don't have to chase the balls that far" terms. Never actually looked around. I wonder if that's a country thing--I mean Venus and Serena (and Arthur and all them) made such waves, but of course there are tons of black people in Jamaica playing tennis. There are tons of black people.

Oh, there are other things. Including the one time she sang "Sweet Home Alabama" at karaoke.

As I mentioned earlier, my mom's name is Eunice. When people ask her if she hates her name, she shakes her head vehemently and says, "My mother almost named me 'Wanda Hope.' I am forever grateful for Eunice."

I don't think I ever got teased for Susan, but when my classmates found out my middle name, I did get "EU-nice!" the way it was said on the Carol Burnett Show. I was always proud of the connection with my grandmother, but I was in my 20's before I decided the name itself was retro cool. My grandmother was actually Daisy Eunice, but always went by her middle, and most of the more interesting names on my family tree are on her branch--I think Idella was her mother and Lutera her grandmother, and Colonel Maneus Lemley F., where Colonel was a name and not a military rank, was her grandfather.

Wait, wait, how do you pronounce the "a" in Garson? 'Cause I bet I've been saying "Gar" wrong in my head all these years.

It doesn't rhyme with "Tar"? Uh oh.

There's also a blues singer and songwriter named Candye Kane.

She has an excellent voice. And at times she plays piano with her breasts. Fun show. Maybe even more so for my DH.