Don’t Just Call Me Jane

I feel your pain. My name is Scotta. How many times have I heard "did your parents want a boy?" or "is your dad's name Scott?". I love my name now, but I have certainly answered more than my fair share of questions about it. I love getting "oh, that's pretty, where'd it come from" but I don't love "oh, that's different, where'd your parents come up with that". Subtle difference, I know. Just to carry on the confusion, I named my child Elliot, with one t, not two. Take that society!

I feel your pain, Johnna. My name is Scotta. I have answered "did your parents want a boy" and "is your dad's name Scott" more times than I can count. I love my unusual name, but it is certainly met with questions more times than it is met with "oh, that's a beautiful name."

Hello Johnna, I was at school the other day and was sitting in my reading class when are teacher had this great story to show us and it was the one you wrote. We all thought it was a great write up. Well the one thing that we all wanted to know in the class was what is your middle name.

Hello Johnna, I was at school the other day and was sitting in my reading class when are teacher had this great story to show us and it was the one you wrote. We all thought it was a great write up. Well the one thing that we all wanted to know in the class was what is your middle name.

Hello....
I am JOHNNA also, I have had all of the same problems that you have,,, and believe me I correct them every time and sometimes get snoody with it.... My way of signing my name is JOHN*NA .. it has actually become my signature "John na" with a slight space inbetween the "N". My doctor as a young child called me Yonna.. I just couldn't believe it.. I have met several people spelled my way, one graduated high school a year ahead of me and one girl spelled it the funny way Jonna and she was in my graduating class. What 's funny too its such and uncommon name that I am quick to answer when I hear it only to find out that the lady behind the counter is Jonna yes again spelled the funny way! My mother heard the name on a commercial 45 years ago. since then I have seen a horse in a derby named Johnna and my brothers friend have a donkey named Johnna.. and a lady was in a house that was filled with carbon dioxide, and her husband ran through the house yelling Johnna..

Enjoy the confusion if it makes you feel special. But there is nothing wrong with "Jane," either.

Another Jonna (tho' spelled differently) chiming in to say yes, it's occasionally a challenge to correct people, especially when you can correct them 10 times and they still get it wrong, but I love my name. I'm named after my father, Johnny, and his sister, Donna, and even their other sister occasionally gets it wrong! I usually tell people it's like Donna, only with a J, and even then, they can mess it up! I like the fact that it's different, so much so that I gave all three of my daughters unusual names - Bronwen, Morgan (not so unusual anymore) and Sayward, and they love their names, too. I just keep correcting people when they botch it, and they grow wiser! Thanks for the article!

I sympathize: "your ordinary citizen's just kan't keep there different word's strait."

But she should have thought to mention her correct name at least once somewhere in her article. The full text of her article is being circulated around the net without her byline (as I received it) without ever mentioning her correct name. So her true name continues to be silenced.

Let me just say I know Johnna is not the only name that doesn't easily roll off of people's tongues. But it has made me that much more intent in pronouncing someone else's name correctly. I never make an assumption that even a common name is spelled in a common way. Your name is part of who you are! It should never be taken lightly. A friend of mine is married to a nice mane named Ernesto. She introduced him to someone and moments later they called him Enrique. When they corrected them, the person simply said "same thing." Not quite. I wouldn't change my name for anything in the world, and I hope you wouldn't either.

It's nice to know I'm not alone in the world. As a Johnna K. in this world, I now know I don't carry the mispronunciation burdens alone. Is it really that hard? Someone shared this article with me and I enjoyed every word of it! I couldn't help but wonder if people were pronouncing our name correctly as they read it. I always tell people (It's pronounced like Donna only with a J). Yes, I spelled it correctly, no my dad's name is not John (if I were a boy I would have been named Alex), and thank you for telling me about all of the other Johnnas you've met. :)

A regular conversation with a customer on the phone:
"Hello, this is Johnna."
"Hi Donna....."
Lovely. :)
I think I roll my eyes every time. I need to stop doing that.

Thank you for writing this article! I love it and I might even frame it. I could not have written it better myself!

My coworker shared this article with me, as my name is spelled only with one "n" - but I definitely feel your pain with all the mis-pronouncing, thinking my parents wanted a boy; as my father's name is John.. and that maybe I don't know how to spell my own name. I know! and to top it off, my last name is only two letters and doesn't have any vowels, so that just creates a secondary issue after they get over the problem with my first name. I have met a few others with same name but different spellings in my 29 years of life.

I have come to the point where I don't really let it bother me anymore, as it can get quite exasperating and tiresome. I think being named after my father was meant to be, as our personalities are exactly alike and I've been told that I look so much like him!

Here's to all the Johnas, Johnnas, Janas, and Giannas in the world! Thanks for writing this! - Johna

Ahhh - Johnna's my name - and while I have lived everything Ms. Kaplan wrote about - what was actually worse for me was the first time I met another Johnna. I was in my 30's. Now I had met people who had heard the name or new someone with the name - but when I met my 1st other Johnna - there was confusion and to be honest a little resentment. After all it is my name!! I never ever had to share it before! It still takes me a moment when I'm with the other Johnna (yes we are friends now) to get over my confusion. I'm sure the Susans and Amys and Michelles are used to having to share their name - but I'm not!!

And for the record - my Dad is John and my parents were hoping for a boy - and when they got one 2 years later - they of course named him.... Christopher.

Thank you Johnna for the chuckles!! - Johnna

Oh - and I'm guessing that Ms Kaplan pronounces it like we do...."Ja-na" or "John-na" like the man's name with an extra short "a" at the end

Johnnas unite! My husband is "John" and so is his father and HIS father. My hubby didn't want to continue that so our son has a different name. When child #2 came along I thought we ought to at least honor the spirit of his "family name." I had a student named Johnna and loved the name - unique, pretty and strong. And so there is a kindergartener in PA - named Johnna!

My name???..are you ready??????.is Deirdre Connaughton Steinfort. Deirdre is a character from Irish mythology. Connaught was one of the original 5 regions that Ireland was divided into, and owned by the Connaughton family. Steinfort is a well know surname in Germany.

I can relate to every word of Johnn???a article. It???s so true. I have been called everything in the book, seen every possible misspelling, and no matter how many times I point out there are two Rs in my name, I am called ???Dee-dra??????.as if I do not know how to pronounce my own name.

My can even relate to Johnna???s interaction with her boss. My own boss thinks it???s very amusing to call me ???Dee-ay-dra??? even though she knows it drives me crazy.

Thank you Johanna for defending our right to not have this key part of our identity and our uniqueness mangled by all the plain Janes, Marys, and Beths in the crowd???.

As another Johnna, I also have to learn to answer to any number of J-name variations and then explain the origin. My parents didn't want a boy either- there were too many other boys named John in our family!

I've thought about giving alternative names for takeout and coffee orders too. But it feels too weird to give a name any other than my own. On occassion I'll say my name, and the person taking my order will stare at me with both fear and exasperation - so I just tell them they can use a shortened version. This usually gets a sigh of relief from the person taking my order. In any case - just as Johnna said, my name is also constantly mispronounced. I also get people mispelling my name as if correcting me. Others marvel at the originality, and ask to hear the story of how my name came to be (even though my name is just a combination of two extremely common names). It can be tiresome, it can be annoying, but mostly that's just the way it is. I wouldn't feel comfortable changing my name or shortening my name, and I don't have a middle name to fall back on. So... c'est la vie, at least for those of us who have "different" names.

I love how America has such a great attention to detail.

It's very American of the people who mispronouce/spell this young lady's name. Many of us try to fit things neatly into our own simple minds and worlds as to not startle everything that we have organized for our own understanding. The bottom line and moral of this story is that we are very ignorant and when someone is "different," or throws us a curve ball, we are unable to adapt. We simply and I do mean simply, see things the way we want to see them. In the end, we are the ones who miss out. Americans need to get out of America and travel a little, study other languages, cultures and stop thinking "inside the box."

Make sense?

On behalf of all of us stuck with an "ordinary name," get over yourself.