How To Deal With Having A Name No One Can Pronounce
By: Suman Sandhu
Tags: Advice, Culture, Humour, Essay, Self

How To Deal With Having A Name No One Can Pronounce

Photo by Barathan Amuthan from Pexels

Oh the trials and tribulations of living with a tricky-to-say name. Not only am I plagued with having my ears assaulted on a regular basis with incorrect pronunciations, but it has also caused me an unnecessary amount of negative emotions over the years. As if I even need any more of those. For reference, I don’t!

School taught me to ignore the way my name was said by others. I had an embarrassingly dorky nickname at home anyway (I’m NEVER telling) so my real name never really felt like it was truly my own. In other words, I didn’t own it.

Thanks a bunch for that one, Punjabi parents! I mean seriously – in which other culture does the name Arun even remotely warrant being affectionately known as Bobby, Manjeet becomes Bitteh and Manjinder is aka Pinky? None, I tell you. Not any that care even a little bit about their kids’ feelings, anyhow.

Punjabis are notoriously blunt people, telling it just how it is. Unless it’s your nickname, in which case it will likely have nothing to do with your actual real name. A name which is likely to be difficult for English folk to say correctly without explanation or clarification.

School was a long time ago though and now I’m allegedly a grown-up and the creator of my own destiny. So is the fact my name is still so often mispronounced decades later really MY fault? Or is it down to the laziness of others? (Hint, I hope it’s the latter).

Soo-man?

The mispronunciations are almost always ugly. Too much emphasis on the first syllable, or even worse both. It isn’t Sooo-mun or even worse Soo-MAN. As I joined the working world, I finally found an easy way to explain it — universally the word “woman” rhymes with Suman (neither syllables are harsh or long). Northerners could get away with saying the word “summon” in their friendly little accents and it was close enough for me.

Lately though my attitude has changed. I’m relieved when people don’t say my name during conversation. Thus avoiding the worry about whether I will have to correct them, how they will react to being corrected, how often I will have to remind them and whether I will ever get to know them well enough anyway to even warrant making the effort to explain. Exhausting, right? I like to avoid making tough decisions like these lest my forehead produces more worry lines. But this avoidance can be awkward and it hangs over the conversation like an ominous grey cloud, so that I can’t fully relax and silently wince every time I hear my name being butchered.

At 41 I should be past that point now, but over time I’ve become jaded. The passive-aggressive reactions I periodically get when I politely correct them, the raised eyebrow, them looking offended, or worse – when they try so earnestly and then still repeatedly get it wrong. So oblivious to their own mistake, that if I correct them again I fear coming off as an easily offended diva.

Am I truly to blame for not correcting them though? There is an element of immigrant mentality residing deep within that has been learned in infancy from my parents.

The inner voice saying “be grateful you’re here and don’t expect the natives to bend for you! You don’t belong here and neither does your weird name! Imposter!” I really should just shut up and be grateful they’re even attempting to say my incongruously foreign name with their perfect English mouths. Better than “oi, Paki” I guess! Once again – thanks, dear parents.

If you are blessed with an “easy” name you may believe it is as simple as just being told how to say it correctly. But in order for you to truly help people like me then you need to understand fully the plight of those with “difficult” names, and the mixed emotions that accompany this. Allow me to explain the Seven Stages of the Mispronunciation of Suman:

Resilience

I’ve never felt the pressure to anglicise my first name in the way many South Asians in North America do. My friend Minder in San Diego is Amanda and her brother Jason is actually Jasdeep. It’s also common for east Asians everywhere to have an English name alongside their traditional one. However, I feel that in this millennium we don’t have the same pressure/sense of otherness our parents experienced to simplify their names a generation or two ago. When many of them emigrated here in the 1960’s and needed to find work it was a different world. So unless I really want to do it for myself, why should I change my name to a more Western sounding one? I’ve never wanted to be Simone and I am definitely not a Sue.

2. Acceptance

At the multi-cultural high school I attended I didn’t really expect the teachers to get my name right. It was a given that so many of us would have our names said incorrectly by the majority white middle-class teaching staff.

At university though I was the only South Asian on my course and it was easier to explain to my peers the way my name was pronounced. In our small tutorial groups lecturers often took the time to learn to say my name in the correct way, especially as everyone else had much easier English-sounding names.

However, I did still feel the reluctance of some professors to ask me a question in class for fear of calling on me incorrectly. Not being a fan of public speaking I was definitely down with being ignored in this way.

3. Shame

I clearly remember a job interview in my early twenties where my future boss exited the lift and came over to shake my hand with a smile, greeting me by name. Thinking it best to correct her from the off-set, rather than letting it drag on so the mispronunciation became ingrained, I told her how to say it.

She seemed a little taken aback at my correction, although I’d smiled warmly and given a good firm handshake in return. She reacted as if I had done something really ballsy. I was confused — did I do something wrong? I felt embarrassed (although it wasn’t my shame to feel).

She would later, on occasion, bring it up as a joke and say “Suman, actually” with a touch of mock attitude. Being the most working-class person in the department and living in a far from affluent area it felt like more of a slight than the joke it was intended to be. But I laughed and played along with it. Secretly I cringed and to this day wish I had developed a fake work persona instead of being myself and so often feeling out of place.

4. Annoyance

The most irritating feeling arises when fellow British Indians say my name wrong. Firstly I feel bad (for them) at having to explain the actual pronunciation. But this soon turns to annoyance — it’s not a super common name but its not that unusual either. Plus there was a very popular Bollywood film called ‘Maine Pyar Kiye’ (I Fell In Love) where the leading lady played a character called Suman. Ergo there is no reason for any Indian who grew up in the nineties not to know how to say it. I don’t care if you claim your parents never rented it on VHS from the Indian video shop on a Sunday afternoon and forced you to watch it with the rest of the clan – I know you’re lying.

Please enjoy this Hindi version of Stevie Wonder’s classic “I Just Called” from the above mentioned movie, complete with interpretive dance which should induce an element of 80’s nostalgia

5. Anger

The worst time was when I was in a bar with my husband during the early stages of us dating. We bumped in to his friend and the drunk girl he was with (later to be his wife) and upon being introduced she exclaimed “What?! Semen?!” amid fits of barely concealed laughter. I put it down to her being totally inebriated, but obviously I’ll never forget this and felt a small amount of satisfaction about the huge amount of weight she put on after she had a baby. I’m not perfect all the time, okay.

6. Ambivalence

These tiny but significant slights have resulted in me almost completely giving up explaining how to say my name correctly. Often I let it pass too long at which point it becomes awkward trying to explain. My Pilates instructor fluctuates between different ways of saying this two syllabled tongue twister and I really cannot be bothered. She has been teaching me for three years and I’ve not corrected her since the first attempt so it would just feel weird doing it now. She has so many students and will likely forget in a week. So fuck it, why even bother.

7. Hope

But wait, there is a solution! I have decided to do a Kamala Harris and pay a bunch of cute 5 year-olds to teach people how to say my name through a promotional video. If it’s good enough for the Vice-President Elect then it’s good enough for me. I may not have her budget but hey, we are all equal in the eyes of God. Hang on a sec, didn’t she still get slack for the way they said it? Is it really Comma-la or is it actually Kum-Lah? Aaargh…

Say my name, say my name (or don’t)

If I actually was a famous personality like Kamala, I would probably get shit from some quarters for anglicising the pronunciation of my last name. For reference it’s Sun-dhoo where the last syllable is a hard D said with tongue behind teeth. I’ve never pronounced it the correct way though, and neither have my parents. Having difficult first names is hard enough without having to start explaining a last name using sounds that English speakers can’t even make naturally unless they’re drunk and up for a laugh.