For the most part, I’m glad my parents kept my name simple. Once a last name is over eight letters, no matter how easy it is to pronounce, people panic and come up with some seriously baffling versions. Having a simple first name at least saves me from double the annoyance.
I also get the appeal of having a less common name. There were always at least three Mikes in my classes and it sucked for them.
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Still, there should be a happy medium between too common and too out there.
Life would be really boring if everyone was the same.
Still, for every Jennifer there’s a Sunshine that just wants people to stop commenting on her name.
(I used to work with a Sunshine. Like clockwork, she would answer the phone with her name and then I’d hear, “Yes, that’s my real name,” in a tone just barely hiding exasperation.)
It’s bad enough when you’re a white kid with an unusual name, but once you start to add another culture into the mix, things get dicey.
We’ve all seen it happen during the morning attendance check. A new teacher casually reads out the names before stumbling over one.
Often, the kid in question is a person of color with a name more common in their cultural group or country of origin.
One African-American woman knows this pattern well because her name is Marijuana Pepsi Vandyck.
Yes, that’s the name her parents gave her and “proclaimed that it would take her around the world.”
Aspirational names are nothing new, but I’m not sure what Marijuana’s mom thought the name would mean in the future.
She’s very used to the reaction to her name now.
It’s particularly irksome in classrooms, and she even called out a professor for it once after they began to quiz her mid-attendance.
“I’m sorry. You didn’t ask anyone else that. Why are you asking me? My name is Marijuana, thank you.”
But she refused to change her name just to conform.
Some people even refused to call her by such a “druggy” name, but she rejected attempts to call her Mary.
In business or other endeavors, she admits to just using the initials MP sometimes, just to save herself the time taken whenever she has to explain the name to someone new.
Now she’s earned a Ph.D. in higher education leadership using her experiences as inspiration.
Her dissertation topic was “Black names in white classrooms: Teacher behaviors and student perceptions.”
She interviewed many other African-American students with stories similar to hers and wrote about how being singled out in that way affected their grades and future prospects.
She hopes to expand on the ideas presented in a nonfiction book on the topic.
Some young people have told her they think her name’s pretty cool, but even though she’s embraced it, she advises them against doing the same to their future children.
Now that she’s officially Dr. Marijuana Pepsi, she wants other kids like her to know their names shouldn’t hold them back.
And in case you’re wondering, no, she’s never smoked her namesake and isn’t really a fan of soda either.
h/t: Journal Sentinel
