I’m attached to my FN Arnold — because it comes from my father and grandfather, who I am pleased to honor. But (as I’ve written about many times on this blog) in the modern US, it comes with a load of awkward associations, and people are inclined to see it as somewhat weird, funny — maybe, ugh, foreign. So they misremember it, as something more palatable to them.
Just this morning alone, in quick succession, I was addressed as:
Albert, Harold, and Donald
I could start a law firm for us.
(Correcting people just annoys them — legitimately, because it breaks whatever kind of everyday interaction we were having.)
This is the sort of thing that led me to develop my alter ego Alex Adams (more postings on that). But Alex is there for (various) special occasions, not for everyday use. I do treasure Alex, but he’s a different guy.
Meanwhile, I have had to learn that I might be expected to respond to pretty much any trochaic male name (there are more: Arthur and Herbert, especially, but I’ve occasionally gotten Aaron and Henry, too). You learn to be flexible. But this morning I felt the powerful surge of anti-Albert revolt. When it came to Donald, I wanted to snap back: CALL ME ISHMAEL, the outcast.
(My father, in these very circumstances, just took his college nickname, Zip (an admirable name for him), and used it for everyday purposes all of his life; everybody, including my mother, called him Zip, and when my man Jacques came into the family as a second son for him, Jacques called him Zip too. Of course.)
