A little advice

[lothlorienbaby.livejournal.com]

This is not meant to hurt anyone's feelings. Just a little advice from someone who was given an unusual name. I thought I would post this after commenting on another post.

My name is Lorien. Don't get the reference right away? Don't worry, most people don't. And while I was growing up, if I said it's from JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy (Lothlorien is the domain of Galadriel) 99.9% of people still didn't get it. No one thought it was cool. It just made me weird to other kids. I hated my name and refused to read LOTR until a few years ago because of it.

No one can spell it. I usually have to spell it out several times for people and even then I get things addressed to "Lorian" and "Loren." Or sometimes "Laura." Which is no big deal if it's junk mail, but it becomes a problem if it's my cable bill or my employer and so I spend an hour on hold trying to correct it.

No one can pronounce it. I get "Lauren," "Lorraine," "Lori Ann," and "Loreen." (It is pronounced Lori-enn.) No big deal, you say? Every time I go to the doctor's office or somewhere else where they are going to call my name, I have to listen very closely because they usually mangle it pretty badly. School? Oh yeah that was fun. I'm constantly correcting people on the pronunciation and a lot of times I give up and let them call me Lauren.

So please remember that unusual names are fun, but there are a lot of real world problems with having an unusual name, even one that seems like it shouldn't be that hard to spell or pronounce. And although I've finally made peace with my name, I hated my parents for a long time because of it.

Comments

[christhiane.livejournal.com]

I got the reference (even though I'm not a LOTR fan) and the pronounciation right, but then again, I've not got English as a first name.

My older sister has an unusual name which hardly anyone can spell, indeed, one of the characters needed does not appear in the alphabeth we or English uses, she's never really hated it all that much.

My name's unusual, too, but to Norwegians it's VERY easy to spell. I was exceedingly shy so people had problems hearing what my name actually was. But my mum saddled me with a usual name in front of my unusual one. That made me HAVE to speak up in class and correct a teacher or else I'd be stuck with my hated first name. That made me so furious that I ended up deleting it alltogether.

I know what you're saying, though. Even if I like weird names myself, I don't want children and if I did, I'd try to find something a but conventional.

[medland.livejournal.com]

Just out of interest what is your sister's name?

[christhiane.livejournal.com]

Ey­­ðgun, or Eydgun. It's near impossible to pronounce in English. The d is silent. Æi-goon. (æ=a in fat). She prefers the name to be pronounced with a sound which does not exist in English. However, the 'gun' part is a commonish Norwegian name whereas æi is a common diphtong, so it doesnt sound foreign.

Sorry if I confused you.

[galfridian.livejournal.com]

(Am I a total dork because I caught the reference right away? …I thought so.)

I agree with you. It’s frustrating enough having a middle name that no one guesses correctly (Lea—not pronounced like the princess from Star Wars, not a two-syllable name; just like “Lee”). I can’t imagine how much it sucks to deal with that.

Of course, I have to put in that all people should find somewhere nice between uncommon names that are mispronounced often & the names that are so common that are six other people in a classroom with your name. I’m a Jessica. It hurts. Oh, it hurts.

[lothlorienbaby.livejournal.com]

Dork status confirmed. ;-)

I know what you mean about tons of other people with your name. There were like eight Jennifers in class during high school.

[vixenofflames.livejournal.com]

My name's Leah. Lee-Uh. But I get Leia and Lee all the time. One time a kid called me leech while trying to read my nametag at work.

[bratgrrl.livejournal.com]

As someone who also has an unusual name, I have to disagree. My name is Georgeanna and I love it. Sure, I have to tell people how to pronounce it correctly and how to spell it, but it doesn't bother me. If it's somewhere I will be going again (doctor office, employer, etc) they almost always remember me the next time. I'm not just another face to them, I'm the one with the "weird" name. My aunt and uncle's last name is Georgianna....yea try explaining that to people! Oh, and one of my sisters is named Kjirtsen (Cheer-sten) and she also loves that she has a "weird" name. Neither of us would have it any other way!

[shweetnettie13.livejournal.com]

I got the reference right away :o)

But...that's cause the dorms I lived in were called "middle earth" and all of the actual dorm buildings were named after locations and things...my dorm was Hobbiton, one was Lorien, the all-girl dorm was Rivendell, etc.

[washironfucketc.livejournal.com]

Hmm my name wasn't extremely common but it was far from weird. People constantly misspell it and pronounce it wrong, or just decide that I like going by Alex, when I don't. I think all names have their draw backs.

They way my son's name is spelled makes people confused, so this time we decided to go with something that wasn't Gaelic.

Personally I think your name is beautiful.

[heyitsrebecca.livejournal.com]

I don't agree with giving kids weird names, for the most part..
But here's what I don't understand about this post:
The entire thing is a warning about how horrible and life-ruining this bizzare name has been for you.. and at the end we read, "I've finally made peace with my name."
It's sort of hard for be to believe it was THAT terrible, and that you really believe others shouldn't inflict such names on their kids if you've voluntarily kept it.
And even though I'm no LOTR fan and didn't get the reference, the pronunciation seemed straightforward to me. LOL

[xxpiratekisses.livejournal.com]

I got the reference, too. I'm a huge LOTR fan.

I know where you are coming from. My middle name is Dwan [like rhymes with swan]. My mom got it from one of the earlier versions of King Kong. I've spent my whole life correcting everyone, because they either think I am stupid and can't spell my own name so they change the spelling to Dawn or they pronounce it as Dawn. For a long time I just gave up on correcting people. I'm still not that fond of it, but I've started to appreciate the fact that it is unique. My first name is Rachel and there's so many of those.

[on-the-cusp.livejournal.com]

I'm a Kassandra that goes by Kasi.
It's definitely an ordeal sometimes, especially trying to get someone over the phone to realize my name is not Cathy, but I don't mind it so much. While I don't feel it's a very unique name (though I've not known a lot of Cassandra's in my time), I like that the spelling is fairly different and also plan to give my children unique names.
I think it gives them more of an identity. Every name comes with it's mis-spellings and mis-hearings, so why dumb it down?

[bewitchedxsoul.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain! My name, a least around here, is a bit unusual. I'm K'lyssa. The apostrophe seems to throw people off. I get all types of butchered pronunciations (it's Cuh-liss-uh) and a lot of misspellings (people usually spell it Ky'lssa..) The thing that bothers me most, although most people probably don't think it's a big deal, is when people capitalize the L. It's not supposed to be capitalized! =P

The only time my name is really problematic is when people try to write it or when I get things addressed to me. I often get things in the mail addressed to ' L Selmon..which even I don't get and occasionally get two letters that are exactly the same addressed to two differently spelled K'lyssa attempts.

I wouldn't want a normal, common name though. K'lyssa is different enough to cause a few problems, but it's usually okay. It's the spelling part that bugs me, so I don't really mind correcting people on their pronunciations.

[so-there.livejournal.com]

I noticed your username before I read the post, and yeah, I got the reference :)

I have a cousin named Lauren who was 'blessed' with a lovely speech impediment prohibiting her from being able to pronounce the letter 'r' -- even now at the ripe old age of 24. she has people calling her Lou Ann a lot, since that's what it sounds like when she says it.

[oneworldvision.livejournal.com]

I agree completely. My name was extremely common, but has approximately 15 million spelling variations, so to an extent I feel your pain. Hearing "How do you spell that?" (or people taking wrong guesses) all the time was bad enough; I can't imagine "...What the fuck is a '[uneekname]'?" would be a welcome response on top of it. I think a lot of parents just go "OMG PRETTY" and slap it on a birth certificate without even considering the repurcussions for the kids they're saddling with it.

[kinderlijk.livejournal.com]

I'm quite found of unusual names. It's better than having one that's painfully common - I would hate that!

I can see why you'd be upset if your parents named you Boba-Fett or Twinkie or something like that, but Lorien is a very pretty name, and it doesn't sound silly or weird. I once knew a girl named Arwen and she loved her name. Who cares if it's not that common, or if people have a hard little spelling it? Who wants to be common? It's a beautiful name and you should be proud that it's yours.

[marjun.livejournal.com]

People manage "Marion" well enough. "Lorien" isn't that far afield.

[twistedlilfreak.livejournal.com]

I totally understand where you're coming from. Before I changed my name to Regina, my first name was Retta (pronouced Red-a or Rhett-a). No one could spell it if I said it. No one could pronounce it if they saw it written. I was constantly getting called Rita or Greta. And there was one girl in school who called me Gretel. People would spell it Redda usually if they had heard it but not seen it. I had one teacher who kept spelling it Rhetta no matter how many times I wrote it correctly on my papers. Most adults said it was a pretty name, but I think they were just being nice. I was teased about it because it sounds like it comes from Rhett, which it doesn't. I can't count how many times I was asked if I was named after Rhett Butler.

My younger sister didn't have it any easier. Her name is Shonda. (pronounced Shawn-da) She usually goes by her middle name, May.

Oh and my birth name, Retta, is from the German name Arietta which means melody. That's kind of pretty so I might have kept my name if I hadn't hated it from being teased.

[blissurrenderd.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping my daughter will be somewhere in the middle. She has a hard, uncommon (in the U.S.) name, but it has a really easy nickname that we call her pretty much all the time.

[canadiangirl16.livejournal.com]

I was supposed to have the middle name Anne like the rest of the women in my family, but then my intials would've been HAM. Mary became my middle name instead.

[eb-girl.livejournal.com]

Try having a name like Jahnavi. I think by the time I was 10 I'd learned to just listen for the really long pause during any roll-call/doctor visits/etc.

It's gotten better over the years. I think people are becoming more used to unnusual names, but I can't even begin to recount all of the horrible ways in which my name has been mangled.

[lovablemess.livejournal.com]

I knew a girl named Lorien growing up.

[canadiangirl16.livejournal.com]

As if you've had that much trouble; I figured that it would be pronounced like "Lori-enn" right away, and I know nothing about Lord of the Rings :P My mother's name is Marilyn, like Marilyn Monroe, and most people who don't know her still try to address her as Mary-lynn or Mary-leene or something! I don't get it.

[fleckerbug.livejournal.com]

I have no problem pronouncing your name and think it is quite pretty. I get the LOTR association, but you don't need to tell people that. My name is semi-unusual. It's becoming more common, but it used to be most people I 'd meet had never met a 'Meredith' before. Also, either someone knows it or they don't Some people know how to spell it immediately and other butcher it all to hell. I even get Meribeth, which I hate hate hate, but I still love my name!

[cealchylle.livejournal.com]

Lorien is a gorgeous name! I'd name my hypothetical daughter that in heartbeat. Not that I don't appreciate your troubles.

It just seems to me that much of it depends on where you live, and what kind of people you live around. My name is hardly unusual, it's Chelsea. It's sort of in that middle place where you've heard of it, and maybe even know some people named it, but you still don't run into Chelseas too often.

And even though this is a straight-laced English name (no weird foreign sounds!), there are people who don't pronounce it correctly at first. I've gotten Chel-see-ah several times or Chelt-see, which I totally don't get.

Your name is NOT hard to pronounce (or spell, either). It's just, depending on where you are, there are some people that can't pronounce anything more complicated than Dave or John. If you live somewhere like a big city that's got a diverse population (DC in my case), I think you'd find people are much better at learning unusual names.

My dad's name is most often pronounced wrong...it's spelled Jan, but pronounced like "yawn." I don't think it's ever bothered him too much. He likes the Europeanness of it. The only that's sometimes a pain is that I can't tell if a caller who pronounces it wrong is asking for my mom or dad (her name is Janis...ironically enough).

[radbiscuits.livejournal.com]

Aww but your name is wonderful. Such a pity more people don't appreciate it. My sister has a friend called Lorian. Her parents wanted to name her after Lothlorien like you, but they were worried with pronunciation issues. Now my sister wants to name a hypothetical boy and girl Edoras and Lorien. But she'll probably wimp out and go for her second favourites Jack and Lily, and blatantly ignore me when I remind her that those are the names of Johnny Depp's children. One can dream, i suppose.

[iceni.livejournal.com]

My own name is known, but less common in England and it's been mispronounced by people calling out my name reading it on paper all my life (teachers, evening classes. doctors & dentists etc). Sometimes they get the short surname wrong too/instead. It could really annoy some people, although I've always just let it pass. I also have relatives who keep calling me my sister's name. My friends prefer one shortened form and my relatives use another, and neither of these were the shortened forms my parents expected would be used.

One Welsh friend had the pretty name of Llinos. Unfortunately her parents had moved from Wales to middle England, where the school kids hadn't heard of the name before. She complained that she'd been called Kleenex (as in the brand of tissues)by one or two kids who couldn't be bothered to say it right.