What's in a name?

[susandennis]

I got an email from a high school friend today and she used my high school nickname that I have not heard in about 50 years. It cracked me up and turned on the thinker...

I was born Susan Karolene (sounds like gasoline) Schubert. My family called me Susie. Everyone else called me Susan. Until high school where adults called me Susan and my friends called me schubieschubiedoo or just schubie or just doo. I left schubieschubiedoo in North Carolina when I went to college.

I went to a school outside of Pittsburgh. I was the only student from south of Northern Virginia. I was the only student from the South that most of my fellow students had ever met. It took them about 2 minutes to tag me with the nickname of Sugar which they pronounced mostly Sugah in their 'Southern' accents. I was there for 4 years and most of the people I met never knew my name was Susan.

I had a gynormous battle with my editor when I got my first newspaper job. He wanted my byline to be Sugar Schubert. I said NO. No. NO FUCKING WAY. No. I told him I would write not stories if that was the byline they were going to use. I finally wore him down. And Sugar Schubert was pretty much buried forever. Whew.

But Schubert was an issue. Everyone spelled it Shubert. Those who saw it but never heard it, couldn't pronounce it. Sumpert, Sufford, Howdoyousaythat? So when I married Bob Dennis, I grabbed Dennis. Which turned out to have issues I never imagined and still don't really get.

Even today when I extend my hand and say "Hi, my name is Susan Dennis", more often than not, the response is "Hi, Sandy!". It used to be that the sharper folks would say 'oh wait, no Sandy Dennis is that Wheat Thins lady, isn't she'? Er, no. Sandy Dennis was an esteemed broadway and movie actress. The Wheat Thins lady was Sandy Duncan. These days no one remembers either one of them but they still call me Sandy.

In the 80's I had a job doing marketing for a performing arts theater in Charlotte, NC. TV stations back then were required to include a certain number of public service information in their newscasts every day. My non profit theater qualified and was way more fun than horrible disease non profits. So I was on TV a lot. The guy at the keyboard would ask me to check my name as it would appear and I'd check and it would say Susan Dennis. And then I'd sit down for the interview and the interviewer would say 'So, Sandy, tell us a little about Spirit Square's upcoming season!' That happened more times than not.

I dropped Karolene when I got divorced so now I'm Susan NMI Dennis and I'm ok with that.

Dolls du jour. Zoey wouldn't move.

Comments

[meowmensteen]

So it wasn't a completely useless marriage.

I usually get called Jenifer or Tiffany. One time I had a co-worker who couldn't remember my name, and in a moment of panic she called me Tiffany-the-Jenifer. Her name was Imelda. I still remember that.

[susandennis]

Oh no, I milked that marriage for all it was worth :)

Tiffany-the-Jenifer. I like it.

[litlebanana.livejournal.com]

Wow, I'm jealous of all your nicknames. I have literally never had a nickname ever in my entire life.

[susandennis]

I call you litlebanana. That should count. Unless, of course, your name is actually Litlebanana.

[billinaction.livejournal.com]

My born name is Billi and I cannot tell you the amount of times I'm called Wilhemena or am asked what is it short for. Nothing, it just is that name! I have noticed at work that more people on the phone think I pronounce my name "Felicia" and I can't figure out why they think Billi = Felicia but whatever.
I also dropped my middle name when I got married. Frances was awful and I hated it with every fiber. It was liberating to move my maiden name to middle and take Cole's last name. YAY for happy names!

[susandennis]

It's the reverse nickname issue!! Yeah, the Felicia/Billi thing is whacko.

[slinkslowdown.livejournal.com]

Since high school [but now only with those IRL who I'm not "out" to], I've been Kat.

But at my second high school, my group of friends had a Kitty and another Kat already. So I latched onto my last name, Weir, and was Weirdo for grade 10+.

[shutterbug.livejournal.com]

Okay, my name is hard, so I get why people flub it. But yours? Especially the current one? Pathetic.

And for the record, I totally know who Sandy Duncan is, and I loved her :)

[luzclarita.livejournal.com]

See, and I would love that nom du plume if it were me! Too funny.

[susandennis]

It was the 70's. They only hired girls because they knew girls got married and quit before they could claim big salaries based on experience. I didn't need anything that even hinted I was anything but deadly serious about a career. If it were today, I'd feel entirely differently, I promise.

[rejectomorph]

I find it astonishing that there are people who can't pronounce Schubert. My mom used to listen to a classical music station when I was a kid, and Schubert was one of the first names I learned to say (mom was quite fond of the "Serenade".)

[susandennis]

yeah, not a lot of classical music lovers. plus Shufford and Shumpert were very common Southern surnames. Schubert really was not at all common.

[badrobot68.livejournal.com]

Sugar Schubert sounds like a fabulous drag queen name.

[susandennis]

It does!! Classical music drag queen!

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

I get called so many different names at work, Chloe, Sophie, Becky, Helen (the library officer is called Helen) but mostly I just get called 'Miss' or the occasional Marm (to rhyme with harm, not ham). An old friend of mine calls me Zod and my grandmother used to call me Zosie but mostly because she didn't like Zoe. A few people call me Fruitcake or Fruity

[luzclarita.livejournal.com]

That makes so much sense. I hadn't thought of that!

[rsc.livejournal.com]

That most of the people you met couldn't spell or pronounce "Schubert" suggests that you hung out with the wrong class of people. Of course it doesn't help that the family after whom so many theaters are named spelled it without the "c".

[rsc.livejournal.com]

Many years ago, jwg sublet the Cambridge house to a woman named Carolyn who had a dog named Jennifer. For reasons nobody can explain, he referred to the two of them collectively as "Penelope". I don't think he ever used it to her face.

[fauxklore]

People just don't listen well to names. I have had a ridiculous number of times when somebody conflated my first and last names and called me "Nadine."

The one nickname I liked was due to a colleague who, for various complex reasons, decided to call me "Doctor Evil," leading other people to call me "Doc."