Names on My Brain

This was originally written in 2009 and is appearing here as part of Throwback Thursday.



I've got names on my brain this morning, and all the strange thing that result from them. Here is a collection of various name related incidents from throughout the years that have stuck with me.

My mother put on very little weight when pregnant with me. Apparently this led everyone to believe that she was carrying a girl, and so my parents were quite prepared (in many ways, including a name) for a little girl, but not for a boy. This probably led to them deciding to name me after my cousin John who was in town to celebrate his birthday, which I was born on; I was named Sean instead of John because I would have been the fourth John in my family, and my mother didn't want that. My mother has guessed that I would have been named Paul (my father's middle name) had I been born two weeks later (as expected) though obviously this is just musing after the fact.

Darth Vader

So I was born Sean Jamie Shewchuk, a name I wouldn't keep very long. My mother and father were separated when I was two and he died when I was three. Not long after his death my mother changed both her name and mine to her maiden name - Henderson. Strangely, a number of my Henderson cousins kept calling me Sean Shewchuk right up until I lost contact with them at the age of eight.

I suppose the fact I had a name change early in life has always limited the degree of sympathy which I have for women who feel they are surrendering their personal identity when they change their name for marriage. I can think of other good reasons to not change your name, but the notion that you are losing your identity rings false with me.

When I started at my first school I had my first experience with a Sean not spelled the same way as mine. There was a time when I held a great deal of resentment towards the Shauns and Shawns of the world, though the problem I really had wasn't with them so much as people who assumed that one or both of those were the only ways to spell the name. But somehow during my life time people have warmed to my spelling of the name. In my childhood people seemed shocked to hear the name could be spelled Sean, while now most people seem to ask the spelling rather than assume the wrong one.

At my second school I began running into another aspect of my name that was a huge annoyance in my childhood - people who pronounce it "seen". Of course, a big part of why I put up with that so much at my second school was that I was the brunt of a lot of teasing in my time there, and it was well known how much being called "seen" bugged me. I still get it occasionally to this day, though it usually comes now from ESL people, and I understand where its coming from with them; the one thing that does bug me as an adult about this is when people argue with me about the pronunciation. My mother didn't just invent the name or the spelling, both have been around for centuries, and someone arguing with me that my spelling is somehow wrong can really get me worked up (probably on some level it brings back memories of elementary school)

When I was eight years old my mother was engaged to get married to a man named Demetrios Zissos. I really liked him which probably played a big role in the fact I was looking forward to my mother and I changing our names to his. Just thinking again of my cousins who didn't know my name had changed to Henderson, I remember joking to my mom they would figure it out just in time for my name to become Zissos. Unfortunately he died shortly before the wedding, and as a result my name remained Sean Henderson.

At the age of eleven my mother actually did get remarried, to Clif Young. I did not like Clif, and so did not have any desire to have his name. My mother felt I was old enough to choose for myself what I would do with regards to name, and this all led to a very tense situation. You see, Clif was his father's only son. Clif and his first wife had some sort of fertility problems (I think this actually was part of the tension that caused their divorce). By the time Cliff and my mother met he was getting a little old to be having kids, but he assumed that I was going to be the answer to his prayers, that I was going to take on and continue the Young name for him. He was always very upset with me for not becoming Sean Young, and even more upset with my mother for not forcing it on me. There would be times that he would sign me up for things as Sean Young, but whenever I could I would ignore anything sent to Sean Young, even if it was something I wanted. I did not like Clif at all, and did not want to be associated to him, by name or any other means.

Another thing about Clif, Clif was very fussy about his names in ways I hadn't encounter before then. First of all his first name was Hubert, which he hated, and so went by his second name. Then there was that most people wanted to spell his name with two fs, which pissed him off because Cliff is short for Clifford, while Clif is short for Clifton. That he was an eccentric character in general made these name issue seem a little crazy.

In high school I had a friend who almost always addressed everyone by their last name. It was interesting, especially in how it stood out. I swear I remember more interactions with him then other people I spent far more time with precisely because of this. What was really funny was when a particular situation pretty much required him to use someone's first name, it always seemed to me that he spoke more quietly at the moment as if he were ashamed or uncomfortable saying it.

During the two years I was in university I had several friends who decided after one year of my knowing them that they were going to change their names. One in particular though always stood out in my mind. The name she decided she wanted people to call her was something I was not going to say. To me it was not a name, and what made it so much worse (in my mind) was that her actual name is one I think sounds quite beautiful. I have never once called her by the name she changed to, and during the year after the change I still knew her this resulted in some tension. I've seen her on some friends' friend lists on facebook, and it seems that fifteen years later she is still going by the name she changed to. Obviously if we had stayed in contact some sort of equilibrium would have had to be found.

I don't what to think of this situation. I feel in my heart that I was right, that the fact she introduced herself by the name she was born with and was fine with me calling her by that for a year means I had every right to keep on doing so. Yet logically, a person ought to have final say on what other people call them. A person ought to be able to decide unilaterally what is appropriate and what is not; logically I am completely wrong.

About the same time I got kicked out of university I started dating a girl name Shila. She had some interesting name issues. The first was that like me people always wanted to spell her name wrong (Shyla). Also like me, people constantly thought she had misspelled her own name (anyone seeing her name written down always though she'd forgotten the e in Sheila). We were engaged off and on for the last half of the three years we went out and one issue that was sticky when we discussed marriage was the last name thing. She didn't want to change her name. I had two thoughts about this. One is that I think a family unit ought to have the same name because it shows unity. The other is that I couldn't help but think of my experiences with Demitrios and Clif when thinking of name changes; specifically that I couldn't help but think that if she wouldn't change her name that she though of me as I thought of Clif. Interestingly, when she wouldn't budge on the issue I told her that a family having the same name was important enough to me that I would change mine if she wouldn't change hers; almost immediately her whole attitude changed. Though we didn't get married and I haven't spoken to her in more than a decade, a couple of times online I have seen her name (and it is unusual enough for me to suspect it is actually her) now hyphenated.

Shila and I breaking up was essentially the end of a death spiral my whole life had been in for about seven years. I started looking for ways to make breaks with my past, and one was my name. I pretty much decided to start going by my middle name, Jamie. The problem I had though was that because of feeling as I did about the name changes I saw friends make in University, I didn't have it in me to tell people who knew me to start calling me Jamie. But what really killed this plan was that I never remembered to tell people I was meeting for the first time the new name. After about six months I realized this was never going to work and gave up on it.

When I started working at Convergys I ran into something I never say coming, something that I have never been able to explain but yet has followed me through three companies and countless projects. For some reason, when I talk on the phone, many people hear my name as Jason. I have been called Jason about once per week for the last eight years. This phenomenon seems completely independent of the geographic location, age, culture, or phone line quality of a customer or the greeting I am required to give by my employer. I simply can't explain it. There is no other incorrect name that comes up consistently. I am Jason.

Another strange thing that comes up a lot in call centre jobs is irate customers who want a last name from the agent they are ripping into. To be frank there isn't really anything they could do with said information, even if they didn't know my first name more than enough is recorded to trace any call I take back to me, but they want my last name. I never give my last name to an irate customer, ever. Part of it is privacy, its none of their business what my name is. Part of it is because if they are irate I am probably a little pissed at them too (even if I am better composed), and this is a way I have a little bit of power over them. The funniest part of the clash over whether I will give them my name or not is the reason they want it (i.e. in hopes they can get me fired) is almost always a lost cause; I have taken hundreds of irate calls over the years and witnessed thousands taken by others; never once have I seen or heard of an agent being fired because of an irate customer.

My wife Margaret had a few things she had jokingly said for years that she wanted in a husband, many of which I had, at least one of which I did not; she wanted a shorter last name. Though I didn't make the situation any worse, her last name remains nine characters long, complimenting her eight character first name. Interestingly Margaret, like me, changed last names at an early age.

Another thing about Margaret, is that she has a name with many derivations, all of which she likes except one. For some reason Marge is a name that rubs her the wrong way, and she won't put up with people calling her that. In my head I call her Mags a lot, but in writing I always put Margaret and out loud I either say "Hun" or occasionally Margaret.

When Margaret was pregnant, we went through the same discussions that every couple does for names and suggestions really covered a wide range. Then I put forth a system for choosing a name, one that I thought would attach the name to someone worth attaching to and in short order Margaret used said system for picking a name from each gender. The system was that first names had to be derived from siblings (biological, adoptive, or step were all fine). We quickly settled on Grace Edith (named after two of Margaret's sisters) and Robert John (named after my step brother and father).

The only Robert born in Alberta in 2005.

Sometimes recently the dwindling contact we have had with Rob Dyer has made me wonder if it was right to name Robbie after him. It makes me sad that Robbie may not get to know the man he was named after. But then I remember the reasons Rob Dyer seemed like such a good choice four years ago; which were the same reasons he was my best man seven years ago. When I look at him I see someone who is very much like me, but is so much better at it than I am. Robbie is named after him because if Rob Dyer is someone I wish I could be more like, surely he is a great example for my son.

I do hope that when Rob's children have children of their own they don't in anyway resent us for having already named our son after their father. Not that anything is preventing them from doing the same, but I hope there is no ill will none the less.

Well, that's all the things I can think of for right now; but as this is such an expansive topic, perhaps I will revisit it some day.