What's in a Name?

Füsun Atalay Copyright © 2006

an anecdote

My Turkish name, Füsun, translates into the word "fascination" in English. My parents didn’t anticipate the misery it would bring me in my youth when they selected this name which, most people I meet now consider to be so unique and lovely. It’s one thing to have a name that's difficult to pronounce. But a name that's mispronounced and ridiculed by her school mates can be traumatic for a young child.

And one would think that I would’ve known better when I became a mother myself. !

When his dad and I decided to call our son Ersin, a name my father had cherished for the son he never had himself, it was to honour my father by naming the first grandson born into a family of three daughters.

Ersin means "man of his word", and that is the covenant by which my son grew up. Honest, sincere and punctual almost to a fault. He was a happy boy, unaware of the mean world of peers out there until he started grade school. His name, of which he’d been so proud, started becoming a source of embarrassment and cause for anxiety for him.

Children teased him, calling him Erin, Erskin, Earskin, Arson, even Airhead. He patiently corrected them, enunciating the syllables, spelling, if necessary. After all, it isn’t rocket science to pronounce two syllables first of which first was akin to the French pronunciation of the letter 'R' and the second, just like 'sin'.

In a day when so many youngsters change the spelling of their names for a little bit of individuality, a slight variation and uniqueness, I wonder why those with different names are mocked ruthlessly.

I’ve seen many different spellings of Meagan, Kim or Monica, with a 'k' or 'y' . I never know if Dwayne is spelled with a 'u' and no 'y', or a 'w' and a 'y' Letters get added, dropped or favoured over others all the time. So, what’s the big deal with an already different name?

Ersin’s grade school years were miserable not only for him but also for his father and me. It was impossible to make him see how silly children could be, as he was a child himself. And how could we answer his question, "Why didn’t you name me Mike or Tim so they wouldn’t laugh at me?" to his satisfaction?

At such times, I often told my son a personal anecdote which helped me when people messed up my name too. He would listen with interest and then I think he usually felt a little lighter in his innocent heart.

. . . . .

When I lived in Newfoundland many years ago, I had participated in the Valentine’s Day "Decadent Sweets and Love Readings" presented by the Writers Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador of which I was a member. We contributed cakes and took part in reading our favourite love verses. The sweet entries, among which were donations by well-known caterers, were to be judged during the intermission.

Each contributor named her entry and wrote her name below it. My rum-laced chocolate-vanilla -pecan cake looked rather unpretentious next to the professionally decorated, multi-tiered structures around it. But it was the spirit that mattered for me, and in the same fun-loving, happy spirit, I named my cake "Felix Culpa" (Happy Sin) and signed my own name without the umlauts which I’d compromised a long time ago.

The judges, Honourable John Crosbie and his wife Janet Crosbie would declare the winner at the end of the readings.

The evening flew by with a silent auction, followed by more poetry and selected prose on love. Then Janet Crosbie took the microphone and announced that the sweets were all very good, and making a selection was a very tough choice. But in the end, they had to go by taste, "... and thus,"she said, " the Fun-Sun cake by Felix Culp, in our opinion, deserves the first place."

After a few seconds of puzzled silence, applause and cheers rose from my fellow writers who collectively shouted the correction, "It’s Füsun’s cake! The name is Fü-sun ~ few- soon !"

Now, I don’t remember what the first prize was. In my excitement I don’ t even remember if I shook hands with the Crosbies. The sweet price of victory, for me, was the recognition and acceptance by my peers in less than the six months I had lived in St. John’s, Newfoundland. My writer friends had not only accepted me, but also learned my name and pronounced it correctly which made me feel that I belonged with all of them.

But when Ersin asked me what I had won that night, I always showed him my Roald Dahl collection. At the tender age of eight, he wouldn’t have quite understood the grown up values. He did, however, love the quirky stories of Dahl, full of imagination and fantasy. He related to Danny, champion of the world in the novel by the same title. He loved living vicariously through Danny and bringing the antagonists to ultimate justice.

Ersin will turn 25 in two weeks. He survived the teasing and the jeers about his name. He did not surrender his calm, easy going nature in order to fight the bullies in his school yard. Occasionally he got support from school, but more often he did not. He found his strength on his own. In the process, I believe, he developed his self confidence and his unique sense of humour.

Today if you ask him what’s in a name, he’ll answer without hesitation, " At times a lot of heart ache and tears, but mostly your real, true self."

Copyrighted Material ~ Copyright © 2007 All Rights belong to Füsun Atalay