This article came up in my Facebook feed in the wake of the Oscars. It discusses how Oscars presenters joked about getting around Quvenzhané [name]Wallis[/name]‘s challenging name by just calling her “[name]Little[/name] Q” and questions why some celebs’ difficult names ([name]Zach[/name] Galifianakis, [name]Arnold[/name] Schwarzenegger) get used while African American names are sometimes skipped over or nicknamed or “normalized”. There was a really interesting quotation near the end:
“Give your daughters difficult names,” Warsan [name]Shire[/name] wrote. “Give your daughters names that command the full use of tongue. My name makes you want to tell me the truth. My name doesn’t allow me to trust anyone that cannot pronounce it right … Give your children difficult names, so the world may learn how to unfurl its tongue in the direction of our stolen languages.”
I feel like the question of a name’s “made-up”-ness or “market value” or even its ease of spelling is a topic that comes up regularly in the Nameberry forums and personally thought this article put that topic in a light I hadn’t considered before. I don’t mean it to upset anyone or anything, but maybe it will be interesting or add something new to the conversation.
I thought so, too! I admit I tend to be of the “pick a name someone won’t have to spell 547327974438742743 times in her life,” but in an age when there are a jillion spellings of [name]Madeline[/name], why not something really different?
I also found the sentence, “Names are as big a cultural marker as brown skin and kinky hair,” really honest. Like, we skirt around saying it sometimes, but maybe this kind of cultural identity is something we name enthusiasts can add to the Things We Get Excited About.
VERY interesting. Thanks very much for posting. I would imagine being a child at the Oscars is one of the more patronizing experiences there is. Not having anyone even try to call you by your name would be that much worse.
I’ve never heard the little girls name said aloud before so I’ve always imagined it to be ‘cue-ven-ZAH-nay’. Providing that’s right it doesn’t seem to be the hardest name in the world to pronounce.
Interesting how the writer completely ignored the fact that “[name]Little[/name] Q” is the nn Quvenzhané prefers to go by. They didn’t pull that name out of the sky, that’s the name she goes by at home and at school. A person should be called what THEY choose. If her real name was [name]Katherine[/name] and she says “call me [name]Katie[/name]” would people like this writer cause a stink? Of course not. They’re just using this child to push their own agenda.
And I hate “African American names” as does the majority of African Americans. Why is it that when a few White people make up names they aren’t called “White American names” and considered a part of their culture?
I really liked this article too. I especially like the quote from Warsan [name]Shire[/name] “My name doesn’t allow me to trust anyone that cannot pronounce it right”. I find it incredibly rude and ingnorant when people don’t make an effort to learn somebody’s name. I have a co-worker who was notorious for that. She constantly got people’s names wrong and would even nickname them if she didn’t like their name. We had one patient names [name]Giles[/name] (rhymes with [name]Miles[/name]), and living in a french community every body thought his name was [name]Gilles[/name] (rhymes with [name]Jill[/name]). We even made a special note on his chart on how to properly pronounce his name, yet my coworkers continued to call him [name]Gilles[/name]. He got upset with my one co-worker and she finally said that she was just gonna call him [name]Guy[/name]. She even added the name [name]Guy[/name] to his chart. I was appaled.
Anyways, living in bilingual community, I see a lot of english names get butchered by the french and I see a lot of french names get butchered by the English (my hubby’s first name our surname included). I can understand when language is at fault for the pronounciation problems. What I don’t understand is how people are purposefully ingnorant and don’t even try to learn somebody’s name.
When it comes to names, I tend to lean towards names that are easier to pronounce, and I sometimes obssess over pronounciation ([name]Rowan[/name], [name]Atticus[/name], [name]Cassia[/name] and [name]Elowen[/name] to name a few). But if I met a little girl named [name]Caoimhe[/name], for example, I won’t just disregard her name. I will learn to pronounce it as any respectful person should.
I really liked this article too. I especially like the quote from Warsan [name]Shire[/name] “My name doesn’t allow me to trust anyone that cannot pronounce it right”. I find it incredibly rude and ingnorant when people don’t make an effort to learn somebody’s name. I have a co-worker who was notorious for that. She constantly got people’s names wrong and would even nickname them if she didn’t like their name. We had one patient names [name]Giles[/name] (rhymes with [name]Miles[/name]), and living in a french community every body thought his name was [name]Gilles[/name] (rhymes with [name]Jill[/name]). We even made a special note on his chart on how to properly pronounce his name, yet my coworkers continued to call him [name]Gilles[/name]. He got upset with my one co-worker, the notorious one, and she finally said that she was just gonna call him [name]Guy[/name]. She even added the name [name]Guy[/name] to his chart. I was appaled.
Anyways, living in bilingual community, I see a lot of english names get butchered by the french and I see a lot of french names get butchered by the English (my hubby’s first name our surname included). I can understand when language is at fault for the pronounciation problems. What I don’t understand is how people are purposefully ingnorant and don’t even try to learn somebody’s name.
When it comes to names, I tend to lean towards names that are easier to pronounce, and I sometimes obssess over pronounciation ([name]Rowan[/name], [name]Atticus[/name], [name]Cassia[/name] and [name]Elowen[/name] to name a few). But if I met a little girl named [name]Caoimhe[/name], for example, I won’t just disregard her name. I will learn to pronounce it as any respectful person should.
Quvenzhane’ is a mouthful, yes. But it’s also very cute. If she wants to go by her full name, then by all means she should. People will just have to learn how to pronounce it.
I have a weird name and it’s often mispronounced. I correct people a lot. I also get a lot of compliments. I usually don’t go by a nicknames. I’m very proud of my name and I wouldn’t change it. I’d be a little annoyed (and feel quite patronized) if someone called me “[name]Little[/name] T”
I can see both sides of this. On the one hand, it does seem like an overreaction. On the other, it’s kind of an [name]Oscar[/name] reporter’s job to know how to pronounce Quvenzhane’s name. She seemed quite annoyed when a red carpet reporter called her “[name]Annie[/name]” (she’s going to play [name]Annie[/name] in an upcoming adaptation) instead of her name.
There are a million interviews with her on youtube, it really isn’t hard to look up the pronunciation (something like kwuh-ven-zha-NAY.)
Also, I think the nn [name]Nazy[/name] is adorable.
I saw on CBS [name]Sunday[/name] [name]Morning[/name] where she coached the reporter through it: kwuh-[name]VIN[/name]-zhuh-NAY. She said the first two syllables are from her parents’ names (Qulyndreia and Venjie) and the rest is the Swahili (?) word for “fairy.”
I have students with unique or unusual names every year, and it’s just a matter of taking the time to learn them. My Vietnamese kids are startled when I get it right on the first try: sorry, but I had a Thaoly/Thuy/Huynh last year, so I’m broken in.
I learned really quickly which [name]Kiara[/name] was key-[name]AIR[/name]-uh and which was key-AHR-uh. I had [name]Shamika[/name] and [name]Shanika[/name] in the same room at the same time; also Terrika (TAIR-ika) and Terrica (tuh-[name]REE[/name]-kuh). My only failure was a Ukranian exchange student whose last name was so long that despite daily tutorials, I just couldn’t do it; she was known school-wide by her last initial. That’s how they paged her over the intercom: “Inna K to the front office, please.”
If we’re talking foreign language, I don’t object to having my name slightly altered. Here I’m muh-LISS-uh, in [name]France[/name] I’m may-lee-SAH, and I’m perfectly okay with that. I had a colleague, though, who corrected people on her name all the time: [name]Florence[/name], which is, frankly, pretty difficult for most Americans to pronounce in the French way. But she fought it. I thought it was wasted energy on her part, but to each her own.
This is only somewhat related, but while we’re telling pronunciation anecdotes:
[name]One[/name] of my best friends in middle school was named Vaibhavi (she pronounced it WHY-buh-vee.) Our math teacher went out of her way to make sure she was pronouncing Vaibhavi’s name right while our history teacher just called her vibe-HAH-vee and assumed that was right when she didn’t correct him. The two of them got into a huge argument halfway through the year about which pronunciation was correct, and the history guy ended up looking stupid.
A bit late on this, but a great article! Quvenzhane has said that she uses the nickname Nazie (NAY-zee) and I’m not really sure why people didn’t adopt that if they couldn’t pronounce her name- it had already been Quvenzhane-approved. The article focused mainly on those giving unwanted nicknames rather than parents choosing unpronounceable names, which I thought was important. “Blackness,” as the article put it, has different meanings for different people. While some families may feel Quvenzhane reflects their culture and ideals, others may prefer [name]Michelle[/name]. It doesn’t mean one is better than the other, just that the parents have that right.
Ultimately, however, I think the choice of what a person should be called is up to that person. If Quvenzhane wants to be Nazie, that’s what she should be called. If she wants to be Quvenzhane, that’s what she should be called. Hell, if she wants to be [name]Thomas[/name] that’s what she should be called. A person’s identifier should be THEIR choice, so if the name their parents gave them isn’t their style, they should be free to use a different one.