All my life I’ve had people mis-spell or generally stuff up my last name in one way or another. My last name is not common, but then nor is it a breakaway Russian state either; it’s just not one you see every day.
It’s still English mind you. It wasn’t like I was one of those Asian kids who’s last name was infact their first name which never got used anyway, so you called them by their middle name which also turned out to be the province they were from. Nor is it like my Tokelauan mate Dan, whose father’s English name came about after he originally came over here for a rugby trip and never went home. He and the rest of the team spread out all over the Manawatu – so as to avoid detection from the immigration authorities - and called themselves whatever town they were living in. Thus his last name is Levin.
Teachers at school were forever fucking up my last name. Funny how it was not cool for them to be pulled up on their poor comprehension of the written word, but if it was me stuffing up my reading then the whole friggen class got to hear about it. Most of the time I think they did it on purpose just to piss me off. It’s all part of that mental war game that teachers like to play from the moment you walk in the room. It starts with name calling and ends with rhetorical questions that you answer. Before you know it you’re outside the principal’s office for half a day. True story. Who knows at age 13 what the fuck a rhetorical question is anyway?
But most of the time I put it down to lazy eye syndrome, which is not the same as ‘glad eye’ which is what the poo chick at work gives you across the room after a few wines on a Friday night. It’s like when that same poo chick sends you that spam email that has all the adjoining words taken out of it, but yet somehow your brain can still read it. Only in my case it was bored shitless teachers reading an N when it should have been a W. I took to writing it in bold most of the time, and several sizes bigger than the rest of my surname just so they would get it right. I think in all fairness it just egged the fuckers on.
Still they’re not as bad as the fat bugger on the plane who came up to me one time because he had spotted my name in big letters across the back of the football top I was wearing. He asked if my name was spelt with an N because his was. He showed me his boarding pass and he was not wrong I tell you, his name was spelt with a N. Pity mine wasn’t.
But by College I was well use to having an identity crisis regarding my name. Back when I was about ten I used to go and stay with my father in Tauranga. Incidentally it was his family name that would later give me all the grief in life. I should’ve seen the writing on the wall when not long after this story took place he pissed of to the other side of the world never to be seen or heard from again. Nice one Dad, you tit.
I used to introduce myself to the neighbourhood kids as some other Christian name, because mine was never quite cool enough. Imagine their surprise when they’d knock on the same door I disappeared into at the end of each day and ask my Dad if ‘Steve’, ‘Dave’ or ‘Ian’ was home, only for him to tell them to piss off as there was no one living there by that name.
It all came to a head the day they spotted me behind him. I rolled my eyes at Dad as if to say ‘these guys are on crack or summit, why else would they be asking for someone you’ve never heard of?’ When he looked away I rolled my eyes at them as if to say ‘My Dad is on crack or summit, why else would he not know his own sons name?’. I think I nearly pulled it off. I diffused the situation on my way out the door by telling them they had to call me by my real name which was fucken news to them because they thought I was somebody else anyway!
When I eventually got married I hyphenated my name because it seemed the metro sexual thing to do. After all I thought it was only fair given that my wife and son were doing theirs so I would do mine. Now you’d think three distinct names separated by a space and a hyphen would make things easier, but no. Now I get called my wife’s family name, even by people who have an email from me which has been clearly signed ‘Des’. Don’t even try saying a hyphen name on the phone because the people on the other end are not really listening at the best of times.
Hyphenating your name used to be the sole domain of the poofy upper class, but now it’s the done thing by an insecure society that has devalued the institute of marriage. It’s a father’s way of saying ‘my seed must carry forth’ and it’s a mother’s way of saying ‘I have a steel vagina’. No wonder our kids are growing up without a sense of identity, we don’t even give them that luxury when naming them anymore. My son’s soccer team this year was made up of several hyphenates, of which he was one obviously, but that’s a sign of the times.
One of the fathers who consistently got my name wrong was a hyphen himself. Now that is just taking the piss.
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