Would You Like Me To Spell That?
What’s in a name? Well, if your name’s Muireann, a whole bunch of letters, seemingly in the wrong order and impossible to pronounce.
It’s Muireann, pronounced ‘Mirren’ (but in Irish it sounds more like ‘Mwrn’). Why is it spelt like that? I have no idea, but I suspect it may be because my mother had a difficult labor and wanted to make me pay.
I can accept that it’s not a name you here every day, so I’m always prepared to repeat it several thousand times and spell and re-spell it for a first time audience. Though anyone with a slightly odd name will be able to relate to what a pain in the ass this is.
My mother likes to tell a little anecdote from when I was three or four years old. We were out together and someone had asked my name. When given the response, they inevitably asked how to spell it. I, having heard this numerous times already, blurted out ‘M-U-I-R-E-A-N-N’, completely exasperated. When the woman left, I apparently asked my mother ‘why didn’t you just call me Mary?’ And I was four – completely oblivious to the years of annoyance that lay ahead (though I think the Mary thing was a valid point).
In school, if we had a substitute teacher, the class would wait with baited breath while he did the register to see what kind of fucked up pronunciation he’d come up with when he got to my name.
I have people who’ve known me for years and still can’t pronounce or spell my name. I’m past the point of correction, it’s a lost cause. So, if their name is Anna, I’ll call them Sue. Why should I bother getting their name right if they aren’t concerned about how to say mine?
I’ve been given a string of nick names; Migsy, Mizz, Minty and just M by people who’ve given up altogether. In Japan they called me Minnie, which I didn’t think I’d get called until I was a senior citizen, but you can’t just throw an Irish name at Japanese people learning English – it goes against all the fundamentals they’ve been taught.
The phone is the worst. Have you ever tried leaving a message with a receptionist when your first name is Muireann and your last name is double barreled? Well, if you have a spare 45 minutes, you should try it sometime. I just auto-spell now. I don’t even wait for them to ask me. But even with my slow, repetitive spelling instructions, I know that nine times out of ten, they’re writing it down wrong. Sometimes, they’ll take the liberty of cutting off part of my last name (I can’t tell you how many bank cards I’ve sent back because of this). I’ve given my name to people right in front of me and watched in awe as they wrote down ‘Maureen’. Or they completely butchered the whole thing, so rather than looking like this; Muireann Carey-Campbell, their interpretation looks something like this; Miurranne Kari-Cambel.
Well, it’s Muireann, OK? Not Maureen, not Miriam, not Meeureeanne, not Mirum or anything else beginning with M.
People ask me why I don’t just change it. Um, well, because it’s my name bitches! And it’s beautiful. And despite it being a pain in the ass, I love it.
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Tags: irish names, Muireann, name
