I love my full name, but I don’t often use it. Henrietta (Hen-ree-et-uh) is kind of unusual. A lot of people say Hen-rita, or they shorten it to Hettie or Hen. Which I’m not into. Because I don’t feel like any of those names. I feel like an Ettie. When I started calling myself Ettie - without saying Henrietta at all - I felt so much more like myself.
I dare any non-native Portuguese speaker to ever pronounce the name João correctly. The "ão" syllab is a sound that does not exist in other languages so unless you are born into a native portuguese environment you will never get it right. Met many, many people that learned portuguese later in life and are fluent in the language - and still can't pronounce the "ão" correctly and never will.
as a 'Carolina' migrating from Peru I relate only too well! infact I will never forgot when, at 13 years old my teachers announced thatI would be 'Carol' as my name was 'too long and confusing'...since then all my school friends I still speak to call me 'Carol'
and that is now a term of affection but its complicated! Nevertheless your piece made me think of the amazing Havfy- an award winning artist with a smashing spoken word poetry video:
I grew up as "Hannah ...[pause]" because people didn't want to even attempt my surname. I quite enjoyed collecting misspellings as a kid, though it was always frustrating when I'd start spelling it out and see people writing it down incorrectly AS I spelled it! I've found that people are getting increasingly better at attempting the name at least, but there's definitely an element of privilege there as a white person with a British accent. My friends of colour and immigrant friends have very different experiences.
I dare any non-native Portuguese speaker to ever pronounce the name João correctly. The "ão" syllab is a sound that does not exist in other languages so unless you are born into a native portuguese environment you will never get it right. Met many, many people that learned portuguese later in life and are fluent in the language - and still can't pronounce the "ão" correctly and never will.
as a 'Carolina' migrating from Peru I relate only too well! infact I will never forgot when, at 13 years old my teachers announced thatI would be 'Carol' as my name was 'too long and confusing'...since then all my school friends I still speak to call me 'Carol'
and that is now a term of affection but its complicated! Nevertheless your piece made me think of the amazing Havfy- an award winning artist with a smashing spoken word poetry video:
https://www.tiktok.com/@_havfy/video/7162650093349309702?is_from_webapp=v1&item_id=7162650093349309702
I grew up as "Hannah ...[pause]" because people didn't want to even attempt my surname. I quite enjoyed collecting misspellings as a kid, though it was always frustrating when I'd start spelling it out and see people writing it down incorrectly AS I spelled it! I've found that people are getting increasingly better at attempting the name at least, but there's definitely an element of privilege there as a white person with a British accent. My friends of colour and immigrant friends have very different experiences.