Hello there! Welcome to my blog entitled “It's Zhahn, not Jeen!” And for my first article, I’m going to explain exactly what the title means. (I’ll bet you’ve been wondering that ever since you landed on this page.)
Back in the decade I was born, the name John-Paul was gaining in popularity, initially due to the Beatles and later helped by the two popes who carried that name. My parents, wanting their first child’s name to be unique, chose to go with the older French variant, Jean (pronounced ‘Zhahn’)-Paul. And that is the story (short version) of how I came to have my name.
Initially, I was cool with it. I had a rather unique name, yet it sounded enough like the regular English name that people could substitute the other pronunciation and they’d still be right. So, I thought it was a great name… at first.
Soon, like all growing children eventually must, I had to start going to school. (Okay, to move things along, let’s skip the parts about my extreme case of separation anxiety during the first week or so of preschool and just go straight to the meat of the story.) So there we all were, twenty-or-so bundles of energy talking at light speed and making a terrific racket, when in comes… the teacher!
(Although we’ve never seen her before, because she’s more than twice the size of any one of us 5 year olds, and since no one was calling her “mommy”, it was safe to assume she was the class teacher. Also, when she came in, she was clearly not happy to see us for some reason… perhaps it had something to do with the fact that everyone was talking and no one was seated in the chairs?)
So, after scaring all us kids into our seats and threatening us with a punishment worse than death if we didn’t stay silent, she started taking class attendance. She eventually came to a name where no one replied ‘present!’:
“Jeen-Paul!”
“JEEN-PAUL!!”
“Hoy! Di ba ikaw si Jeen-Paul?? Ba’t di ka sumasagot?!!”
Well, coz that’s NOT my name, you were calling some girl’s name, duh!
… is what I wanted to say, but obviously I didn’t. I just nodded in agreement, like any terrified preschooler would.
And so it began. Year after year, for much of my student life, I could always expect for at least one (though usually more) of the faculty have me go through that cringe-inducing moment where I must sit and listen as my unique French boy’s name is somehow mangled and mispronounced to sound like a girl’s name.
Yep, and it still happens to this day, can you believe it?! A year or so ago, I’d made a doctor’s appointment, and when I came to his office I saw that he had recently hired a new receptionist. So I introduced myself, said I had an appointment, and she began looking for my old file. After a while, when it became apparent that she couldn’t find my folder, I offered to help look. I found it rather quickly, and handed it to her. As she scanned the top of the folder she exclaimed “ah, no wonder I couldn’t find it earlier. It says here your name is JEEN-Paul, not John.” *face-palm*
So how did my moniker & I survive all these years – nay, decades – of ‘verbal abuse’? Well, I decided to make a game of it. Whenever I knew that someone was about to read my name for the first time, I would prepare to place that person in one of two categories: either they were smart enough to know how it is pronounced, or… they just weren’t smart enough. Yes, yes I know, I was such a mean young lad… but hey, they started it!
And my little game continues! So tell me, the next time you come across the name “Jean-Paul”, how will YOU pronounce it? Let me put it another way: would you dare call Van Damme “JEEN-Claude”?
Back in the decade I was born, the name John-Paul was gaining in popularity, initially due to the Beatles and later helped by the two popes who carried that name. My parents, wanting their first child’s name to be unique, chose to go with the older French variant, Jean (pronounced ‘Zhahn’)-Paul. And that is the story (short version) of how I came to have my name.
Initially, I was cool with it. I had a rather unique name, yet it sounded enough like the regular English name that people could substitute the other pronunciation and they’d still be right. So, I thought it was a great name… at first.
Soon, like all growing children eventually must, I had to start going to school. (Okay, to move things along, let’s skip the parts about my extreme case of separation anxiety during the first week or so of preschool and just go straight to the meat of the story.) So there we all were, twenty-or-so bundles of energy talking at light speed and making a terrific racket, when in comes… the teacher!
(Although we’ve never seen her before, because she’s more than twice the size of any one of us 5 year olds, and since no one was calling her “mommy”, it was safe to assume she was the class teacher. Also, when she came in, she was clearly not happy to see us for some reason… perhaps it had something to do with the fact that everyone was talking and no one was seated in the chairs?)
So, after scaring all us kids into our seats and threatening us with a punishment worse than death if we didn’t stay silent, she started taking class attendance. She eventually came to a name where no one replied ‘present!’:
“Jeen-Paul!”
“JEEN-PAUL!!”
“Hoy! Di ba ikaw si Jeen-Paul?? Ba’t di ka sumasagot?!!”
Well, coz that’s NOT my name, you were calling some girl’s name, duh!
… is what I wanted to say, but obviously I didn’t. I just nodded in agreement, like any terrified preschooler would.
And so it began. Year after year, for much of my student life, I could always expect for at least one (though usually more) of the faculty have me go through that cringe-inducing moment where I must sit and listen as my unique French boy’s name is somehow mangled and mispronounced to sound like a girl’s name.
Yep, and it still happens to this day, can you believe it?! A year or so ago, I’d made a doctor’s appointment, and when I came to his office I saw that he had recently hired a new receptionist. So I introduced myself, said I had an appointment, and she began looking for my old file. After a while, when it became apparent that she couldn’t find my folder, I offered to help look. I found it rather quickly, and handed it to her. As she scanned the top of the folder she exclaimed “ah, no wonder I couldn’t find it earlier. It says here your name is JEEN-Paul, not John.” *face-palm*
So how did my moniker & I survive all these years – nay, decades – of ‘verbal abuse’? Well, I decided to make a game of it. Whenever I knew that someone was about to read my name for the first time, I would prepare to place that person in one of two categories: either they were smart enough to know how it is pronounced, or… they just weren’t smart enough. Yes, yes I know, I was such a mean young lad… but hey, they started it!
And my little game continues! So tell me, the next time you come across the name “Jean-Paul”, how will YOU pronounce it? Let me put it another way: would you dare call Van Damme “JEEN-Claude”?
"Don't call me JEEN!"
Snooty for my tastes, but funny. Yet at my age, I still have to contend with people writing Michael as Micheal.
ReplyDeleteThanks! Well, that's just a coping mechanism. Better snooty than outright rude, is how I justify it. ;)
ReplyDelete