A Cultural Compromise
Say My Name — Pt 1
No, but my name is neither mine, nor a learning opportunity. My name is a cultural compromise, a reminder of my assimilation.
When we came here, my father said, in America everyone in the family has the same familia (last name). I wanted to be American, and believed him, so we took out the “a” at the end of Smirnova. It was just the gender marker anyway. Just.
Then I spelled my first name with an “ia” at the end, even though the more literal transliteration would have been Natal’ya, apostrophe standing in for the «ь» — the soft sign in Cyrillic that triggers a phonetic palatization. It just seemed simpler without it, more American.
For a while, I would list my middle initial as «A.» because I am Aleksandrovna, the daughter of Aleksandr. But then I learned what an American middle name typically is — just another first name that has nothing to do with any family members. My patronymic didn’t fit that definition, so when I signed up for a social security card, I didn’t include it. “Middle name?” “I don’t have one,” I lied, and it became law.
Cultural Assimilation, in Three Acts:
Наталья Александровна Смирнова.
Natal’ya Aleksandrovna Smirnova.
Natalia Smirnov.
If I grew up to be an adult in Russia, people would call me Natal’ya Aleksandrovna, because that’s polite. New acquaintances, students would do that.
Americans say about novels by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky: “the names are so long and confusing!”
Russian language is so rich. There are at least ten diminutives for Natal’ya, each one carrying a different connotation — tenderness, playfulness, mockery, begging:
Natasha, Natashen’ka, Natusik, Natash, Natashka, Natka, Natulen’ka, Natul’, Natan, Na-ta-leee!
There are endless variations. We could make up more, and they would make sense. But not in America. There is no logic for that kind of embellished modification. Just reductions, redactions.
In a teen program where I worked, we’d do “preferred pronoun” introductions at the start of meetings. For some of these teens, this was maybe the first time they heard of a preferred pronoun, so they’d say things like “My preferred pronoun is Hannah.” I thought that maybe they didn’t really get the point. But now I wonder if instead they were saying something more deep. Names are actually our ultimate preferred pronouns. And, like Kalonji says, we ought to assert them — it’s a chance to make someone stretch, learn something through the inconvenience, like having to adjust to calling a person “they” if they say they prefer it. To be pushed out of the cultural comfort zone.
But then even my partner, we’ve been together seven years, friends for ten, he can’t really pronounce my name, the way it would sound in Russian. He never developed the phonetic capacity for the soft consonants that are required for the “t” and the “l” in it. I don’t really mind. People do the best they can given their available cultural and linguistic tools. A 4 year old I met recently called me Talia — that’s what she could pronounce! I just don’t like it when people call me a different name, like the more common Natalie, that I imagine belonging to another girl, someone skinnier than me. Or when people shorten me to “Nat.” That’s an entirely different vowel!
My favorite is when we make something totally new together. A Colombian friend of mine Catalina used to call me Nata. I called her Cata. A Bulgarian woman that managed a café where I worked in nicknamed me Natalka. Sometimes, in activist circles, someone will say Natalia with an intentional Spanish accent, like they would “La-tee-no.” That makes me feel kind of cool, although it’s not any more “accurate.” I like acquiring new sounds for myself. In many languages, the common way to introduce yourself is actually “they call me.” Maybe that’s right. You are what you respond to.
Most of the time I don’t really worry about it. Actually, most people here say, “that’s a such a pretty name!” whereas in Russia it would have been just regular. In the US, if I am more palatable without the palatal, I also get to be “more white” — an exchange I implicitly accept with every deletion. But sometimes I mourn my soft sign, my patronymic, my gender marker. I wonder if that’s the more authentic “me.” Did I sell out for the American dream? Voluntarily enforce my own assimilation? Cut out my gender and cultural identities? Or is that just what happens in mixed company? None of us speak the same language, so we can’t help but be awkward and violent to each other, to compromise, assimilate, smooth out the edges. Under-understand.
