Call Me Urška
‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ — William Shakespeare
‘By the way, my name is Urška, not Urska,’ I somewhat grumpily corrected a colleague one day during lunch.
‘Wait, you waited three years to tell me that?’ he replied.
As the story goes, it was my father who named me. Sitting on the subway in New York, shortly before she was due to go back to Yugoslavia to have me, my mother told my father that it was about high time that they finally chose a name for me. (My birth, considered a pre-existing condition, was not covered by health insurance in the US, so my mother flew back to communist Yugoslavia to give birth to me, where she was entitled to free healthcare). His previous suggestion of Jennifer having being rejected for being too American, my father proposed the name Ursula. My mother agreed. I would be Urška in Slovenian, although she later admitted that she had thought it was an ugly and old-fashioned name when she was younger. Little did my father know that Urška was one of the most popular names for girls of my age in Slovenia at the time — the Slovenian equivalent of Jessica or Jennifer for my generation. Meet an Urška and you can be almost certain that she is Slovenian and in her late 30’s to early 40’s. On documents, my name changed according to my nationality: Ursula Jessica in the US and Uršula in Yugoslavia, where I was not allowed to have a middle name. But at home, I was always Urška.
One of the first real decisions I remember making in my life was deciding, in the first grade, that I no longer wanted to be called Ursula, but Urška. Up until then, I had been Ursula at school. Not a common or by any means typical American name, but nevertheless, a name that everyone knew how to pronounce, particularly in Austria, where I grew up. And in our American, but international school, where everyone wanted to be American, being an Ursula fit the bill. But suddenly in the first grade, coming from places other than the US was celebrated and I decided that I wanted to be called Urška, the name my mother called me at home. I remember trying to figure out how to spell it, using ‘sh’ instead of a š — I was not yet familiar with the Slovenia alphabet. At school, my name took on a new pronunciation — the rounded Slovenian ooh that starts my name becoming an unrounded ‘uh’ — a sound that doesn’t exist in Slovenian. But it was my name — a name, that in its new pronunciation also reflected my own mixed Slovenian-American background. Being hyphenated and having an odd name were not particularly big problems in an international school, where many others had strange names like mine. Other than having to explain that I went by Urška rather than Ursula on the first day of class, my name was just that, a name.
When I went to college, I decided that I wanted to introduce myself as ‘Oorshka’, using the Slovenian pronunciation. Newly independent, just like the country I was partly from, I was eager to try out a new identity, one that was truer to the original pronunciation of my name. Uhrshka belonged to the old me, an Urška who I didn’t want to be anymore. I lasted for only a few days.
‘Hi, my name is Urška,’ I’d say.
‘Ooh-What?’
‘Oorshka,’ I’d repeat.
‘Hrushka?’
‘No, Oorshka,’
‘Rooshka?’
‘Never mind, just call me Uhrshka.’
I stuck with that name throughout college, only asserting my right to my true name in Russian class, where I refused to take on a Russian alter-ego. I didn’t want to adopt yet another identity and in Russian, my name reverted to the correct pronunciation. In the midst of the Kostyas, Ekaterinas, and Ksenias, only Meltem, from Turkey, and I, insisted on using our original names. I never asked her why.
When I moved to Senegal for Peace Corps training after college, the very first thing that my host family did was to rename me. Sitting on a mat in their courtyard, I listened to them recite the names of their previous volunteers, before they decided, without asking me, that I would be Aminata. Three months later, when I moved to Guinea to start my service, I dropped their last name of Niang and took on the name of Magassouba, which belonged to the town that I would live in. Last names are very important in Guinea and much of West Africa. Not only do they give information about one’s ethnicity and one’s traditional occupation, but there are special, joking relationships between certain last names. All I had to do was tell someone that I was a Magassouba and they immediately knew that I was from Siguiri, usually accompanied by some comment about how hot it was there. For the first few weeks at site, our conversation revolved around my new last name.
‘Ini sooma,’ they would greet me.
‘N se, ini sooma,’ I would reply.
‘I Magassouba,’ they’d say. (You’re a Magassouba)
‘N se,’ I’d reply. (Yes, I am)
Invariably, this response was followed by lots of laughter. We’d periodically repeat the exchange.
Being a Magassouba made me feel like I belonged in a place where it was very clear that I didn’t. It was a tiny claim to that hot and dusty town that I called home for two years. Being Aminata Magassouba allowed me to be someone who I ordinarily wasn’t. More outgoing. A little crazier. A little more adventurous. I missed Aminata when I moved back to the US for grad school.
It was only as an adult that my name started to become problematic. In grad school, back to being Uhrshka, a professor, upon meeting me, told me that my name was stupid and that I should just go by Ursula. It only got worse when I started working. A new principal didn’t greet me for several months, making me convinced that I had done something to make him dislike me. It wasn’t until he stumbled over my name while greeting a friend and me in the hallway, that it became apparent that the problem was my name and not me. While my name had never really been a problem as a student attending an international school, as an adult working at an international school, I quickly discovered that my colleagues couldn’t seem to get my name right. Uhrshka starting morphing into Uhrsska and emails were routinely addressed to Ursula, even when I replied signing off as Urška. Even close friends misspelled my name. Trying to reclaim my name, I started making a point of including the accent in my name, but the ‘sh’ sound was making a quick disappearance. I was annoyed. The shift from ‘ooh’ to ‘uh’ I had long since adapted to, but the ‘sh’ to ‘s’ was one step too far.
But despite my annoyance, I never corrected anyone’s pronunciation of my name after our initial introduction. I never quite knew how to bring it up and I didn’t want people to feel uncomfortable. But meanwhile, my irritation at being called something that I didn’t even view as my name continued to grow. And thus, I found myself at lunch one day, sitting at the table in the faculty room in Tashkent, correcting a colleague’s pronunciation of my name. I was in a somewhat grumpy mood — my classes had been rambunctious and I was tired, and being called Ursska was suddenly more than I could tolerate. He was incredulous when he pointed out that he had been mispronouncing my name for the last three years and that I hadn’t said a thing. I felt a little sheepish. Perhaps I should have been more insistent. But here I am, several years later, at a new school, still known as Ursska to many of my colleagues. My administrators insist that I include accents when writing report card comments for my students, but never include the accent on my own name in any official documentation. While I understand leaving it off daily emails, since the š is not found on standard US keyboards, is it so much to ask that my name be properly spelled on my name tag or on the sign to my classroom?
Romeo was right. Much as a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, I am still the same person, regardless of what I am called. But as Romeo knew all too well, a name still matters. Had Juliet not been a Capulet, they might have lived together happily ever after. Instead, they both died. The consequences of having my name mispronounced are hopefully not so dire. But nevertheless, each misplaced ‘sh’ sends a subtle message — that I do not matter enough to make the effort to get my name right. But it goes beyond that. For all of us who have names that reflect a non-anglophone cultural background, the experience many of us share of having our names forgotten and dismissed makes us feel that we, too, can be ignored. Yes, my name is difficult to pronounce. And yes, my name does not exist outside of Slovenia. But making the effort to pronounce someone’s name correctly — and I don’t expect perfection — should be a common courtesy. While I can’t say that my parents put a lot of thought into choosing my name, it’s still my name. My mother once asked me if I regretted having been given such a difficult name. I don’t. I can’t imagine being anything but Urška.
