[Pegasus]

Names and their associations are interesting.

I was never aware that I had issues with my own name until I was 18. I was a first year university student, taking a required orientation class. We had read Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (lots of symbolism in the characters’ names) and we students had to write journal entries about our own name. My nickname starts with a different first letter than my given name, so ignorant people start asking me questions I don’t have the answer to, and I get defensive and suggest they look in any baby name book! I had forgotten that I had chosen a different nickname for a month or so when I was ten years old, but it never stuck.

I prefer anonymity. Even when I go to the kind of restaurant where they call out your name when your order is ready, I usually say my given name (which I do not go by), my middle name, or I make something up. This last method backfired on me once when I made up the name “Ezmerelda.” The ordertaker asked me how to spell it and my mind went blank! I couldn’t remember if it was with a “z’ or an “s”!