At least a decade ago, I “borrowed” this exercise from my lovely friend and co-editor of PBQ, Marion Wrenn.
I’d like you to take 15 to 20 minutes to do a freewriting about your name. (A freewriting means that you allow yourself to write without self editing.)
When I say “about your name” I can and do mean many things: 1) you can write about how your parents choose your name; 2) you can write about how you feel about your name; 3) if your name has evolved through your lifetime, you can write about that. You can focus on one of these issues or touch on all three. Simply write about your name for 15 minutes.
The tweak I added was to then collect the students papers and read them aloud, and then have the class guess who is who. Adds a lot of fun to Day One and students tell me that they definitely remember each others’ names. No one says, “I have nothing to write about.”
So. As I am about to go to Cork and teach in UNO’s Study Abroad Creative Writing program, I needed to start a Google Group (no Blackboard or other online course system). I decided I’d have them do the name game exercise and then, I decided I’d do it, too. So here it is:
As a whole, I love my name.
But, let’s take a look at each part, in order. I love the name Kathleen. I think it simply sound pretty, and uses many parts of the mouth to pronounce (the secret to all great words, see “f__k).
“Kathy” is okay, and “Kath” when spoken by people I care about, is great.
What I don’t like: I don’t like the weirdness that surrounds Kathleen. Thousands and thousands of times when I meet people they say, “Are you Kathleen or Kathy?”
And when I respond, “Either one is fine. I think they’re interchangeable.” Or even just, “Whichever you want.” People fall apart. They hate it. I’ve had people virtually demand that I pick one, and that’s what I don’t understand.
Even within my own family, there’s a Steven/Steve and a David/Dave and a Christopher/Chris and even an Allison/Alli/Al. I’ve talked with these people about this issue, of course, and they all say that no one asks them which one they’d prefer , that they get all or both of the names equally and interchangeably. Why can’t the same happen for Kathleen/Kathy?
Growing up, I was not a fan of Volk. It was too short and guttural and reminded me of ralphing, but that’s maybe because people sometimes did that—said people’s names as if they were hurling as they said them—did you ever get harassed like this? —and Volk was an especially good pretend-throw-up word sound.
Also, of course Volk is part of the commonly known Volkswagon which leiterally translated is, “The People’s Wagon.” So, I got that harassment too—Hey Volk—let me adjust your headlights! Hey Volk—you need a body job?”
Kinda rough to hear in 6th grade.
When I first got married and people called me “Mrs. Miller” I got whiplash from how quickly I turned my head to see if my new mother-in-law was standing behind me. Also, people, no matter their intelligence level, would say, “Oh! Are you related to Tom Miller from Absecon? Or [insert first name} from [insert town] ?” This grew tiresome—fast. And it was hard to not say, “Have you seen how many Millers there are in the world? Are you freaking kidding?”
But that would be rude. So I simply kept my mouth shut and converted my name to “Kathleen Volk Miller” which, by now, seems so intrinsic to who I am I can’t imagine answering or identifying to anything else.
I guess, if you made it this far, now would be a good time to say this: you can call me Kathleen, Professor Volk Miller or KVM. NO MRS. Ms., or Miss ANYTHING. Thank you.