A Jozi by any other name...

I’ve been thinking a lot about names lately. Friends surrounding us on all sides just keep producing offspring, which of course leads to lots of talk about names for babies, weird names we’ve heard, funny names, bad names, etc, etc. Naturally all of this talk leads to the “What would you name your baby?” convo, which, as a girl, I am morally obligated to participate in. I would like to point out that as a girl who is not expecting any offspring anytime soon, I feel quite silly participating in these conversations. I start to share with my friends all the fantasy dog names I have accumulated, and they stare at me with that look I have grown used to. (That look says, “Your clock is ticking, your eggs are shriveling and you have no sympathy from us.”) Regardless, it’s still a very valuable conversation to be a part of, for multiple reasons:

1. You glean possibilities of what your friends may name their kids, so you know to steer clear of a name that they absolutely loooooove. I cite here the example of Ella Grace, a beautiful name that one of my friends had her heart set on naming her first daughter. She leaked the name to someone who, well, didn’t really care about her feelings that much, and now Ella Grace will forever be the name that said friend’s ex-boyfriend named HIS daughter. Yikes.
2. You are warned of possible nicknames that you may not have thought of. Herein lies the “Alistair incident”- one of Andy’s friends proudly announced to the room the name of his new son, Alistair. Pretty cool name. Except when Andy said, “But everybody will call him Alice…” and poor Andy’s friend turned a lovely shade of gray realizing that the birth certificate was already stamped, signed, and sealed.
3. You find out that everybody hates the name you were going to use for your kid. As in, “I like the name “Poobahjinks” and your husband says to you, “That was my ex-girlfriend’s name.” Poobahjinks, out.
4. Actually… I can’t think of a fourth reason. But a list just looks so silly with only three points.

One of my favorite things about my job is how often I come across really funny names. I present here a list of names that I have actually, truly, personally come across in my travels through life. I swear to you that every single one of these names I have personally verified:

1. Richard Head (ouch, this was a nickname waiting to happen)
2. Michael Hunt (awful when this kid got paged in school. He went by Mike.)
3. Gertrude Butterbottom (okay, I’m kidding about that one, that was for you, Craig)
4. Rungutai Dyar (this is only funny because to me it just sounds like the noise you made when you were “driving” a toy car. Rung, rung, ruunnnnnnnnggggg…)
5. Richard Shaver (again, people, project a nickname before you name!!)
6. Knowshon Moreno (I can hear it now. “I don’t care what you name that child, but I don’t want no Shawn in this house!”)
7. Pebbles Ritter (that’s just… sad)
8. Choua Moua (I have to give credit to whoever had the guts to do this)
9. Andrewetta Charles (we’ve been diligently searching for that female form of Andrew in case we have a girl… dilemma solved)
10. Art Dodger (one wonders if these parents were very well-read… or just perhaps never picked up a book at all)
11. Ghisline Harvey (I think this was a combination of a typo and somebody not reading the directions right, as in, “Put first name on ghis line…”)
12. Johnny Dingle (poor family…)
13. Scooter Berry (if this weren’t funny enough, don’t let those two sit next to each other: (like this picture)
14. Casper Pepperjammer (so… many… things…)
15. Humberto Trapero (you kill my father, prepare to die)
16. Jocelyn Rae Miller (NOT me, but the OTHER girl in my high school who had the exact same name as me, but was two years younger. Had quite the reputation. Really didn’t like hearing, “wow, that Jocelyn is a slut.” Thank heaven by that time I was already cemented in as Jozi.)
17. Aquoinette Cooper (you have to say this a few times to figure out her mom must have had really, really stiff hair)
18. Caprice Jones (This one is my favorite. Absolute favorite. I won an office bet on this one on the origin of her name. We asked her about it, and she said, “Well, my mom and dad went to a drive-in movie, and nine months later… there I was.” Guess what kind of car they drove?)

So then I started thinking about my name. Growing up, I considered myself a rather unfortunate name holder. Jocelyn was a very unusual name (1980s, Indiana, Mennonite, yes? Unusual) and I got a lot of comments on it. It was hard to spell and too long for those standardized test forms. I was always Jocely Miller. That always made me mad, because I got really, really good scores on those tests and I was ticked off that some Jocely out there was getting credit for it. And my friends couldn’t pronounce Jocelyn, so I was always Joc or Jocy or Jozlyn or Jozi- that’s actually how my nickname (which is basically my real name now) came about, because a certain friend of mine had a brain impediment and couldn’t pronounce the letter C. And my middle name was Rae… not TOO bad, but I thought it was boring, and it annoyed me that it was a “boy’s name”- I was named after my dad, Donald Ray. (Later, by the way, I realized that it was a privilege to be carrying my dad’s banner and I’m very glad that I do.)

I remember once saying to my mom, “I hate my name.” Only later did I realize how horrible that must have been for her to hear. She and my dad must have spent months searching for the perfect name for their perfect (sigh) little baby girl, and had to have been pleased when they came up with these beautiful syllables that had deeper meaning. (While the literal meaning of Jocelyn is “a member of the Gauts tribe” they were naming me Jocelyn as a derivative of Joyce, which means, of course, “joyful.” And I try to be.) But here I go just knifing her heart with my disapproval- I might as well have just told her she was a bad mother. (Not true, by the way.) We’re even, though, because as everybody knows, Jocelyn didn’t stick very long. Too long for a little girl, so it became Joc and Jocy, and later by those friends who couldn’t handle the pressure of “C”, Jozi. (That’s jah-zee, for those of you who have never met me, who, by the way, are reading this blog for no real good reason; aren’t you bored? You must have something better to do.) Oh, and for those few relatives who knew I was going to be named Joshua if I was a boy and never quite got their heads wrapped around that I was a girl, I’m still Josh. But the overwhelming majority called me Jozi, and Jozi I became, and Jozi I was, and Jozi I am. But after it really got officially confirmed that Jozi was my name forevermore and my real identity, that’s when mom told me that she hated it that everybody took such a beautiful name like Jocelyn and turned it into such an ugly “JAWzee.” She pronounced it in that Fran Drescher Nanny voice. Kind of funny. Had to be there.

As far as weird names go, I took the cake. There’s not a person that I meet that doesn’t look at me with fear and trepidation as they realize that have no idea what I just said my name was. It goes like this:

“Hi, I’m Jozi.”

(knit brows) “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Jozi.”

(furrowed brows now, confusion in the eyes) “Can you spell that?”

“Oh, that doesn’t help much. It’s J-o-z-i.”

(relief) “Oh, Josie. Nice to meet you.”

“No, it’s jah-zee, you know, rhymes with Fozzie, the bear from the Muppets? Waka, waka, waka…”

(unmistakable horror- probably from the wakas) “Where does that come from?”

***I’d like to interject here that that, if you think about it, is a truly personal question. And a little insulting. It either means that there’s something ethnically questionable about your name or some weird story about it, neither of which may be first-conversation material. (See “rungutai” and “caprice” above.) Yet, everybody asks it.***

“Oh, it’s short for Jocelyn.”

(the eyes glaze over as they realize this is beyond their comprehensive capabilities) “Ah. It’s interesting.”

Interesting. Invariably the adjective I hear. I know what that is. It’s a neutral and an escape. It’s not good or bad, but incomprehensible, like quantum physics or Shakespeare or jihad. It means, “You have just presented me with information that I am not sure that I like, so I must remove myself from this conversation so that I am allowed to evaluate what I have just heard on my own time. And believe me, missy, I’m going to be working on this for quite a while.” So… whatever. I don’t think anybody really likes my name, but I don’t really care. I enjoy being different. I know that I am the only person in the entire world whose name is jozi-short-for-jocelyn. Oh, sure there are some trendy Josies out there who spell their name like mine so it looks different, but Jozi is just for me and that's all there is to it. It's like Beezus. Hear it... know it... love it (I hope). It makes me different. It makes me stand out. It makes me me.

I know that with a weird name like that, people have to spend a lot more time evaluating the person than the syllables. Hopefully they come up with a positive outcome. I have spent many years with this name, and I have spent many years trying to make my name synonymous with something positive. I mean, I’m no saint, let’s for sure put that out there. But I try to make general society’s interactions with “Jozi” into something good. I know the syllables garner a lot of attention, and at times the person does as well. But I really do work at making both something that people can look at and be pleased with in whatever role I’m placed. Of roles, I have many- Christian, wife, friend, daughter, sister, singer, musician, writer, cousin, niece, in-law, acquaintance, ex, fan, leader, follower, contributor, abstainer… um, I think I’m working too hard here, the point is, I’m seen in a LOT of different ways. All of us are. And I realize that not everybody who sees me is going to like me. But I can only try my best to make Jozi something that influences the rest of the world for good and not evil…as should all super powers.

Recently my cousin had a baby and named her Jocelyn. I thought to myself, “Hm, nice name. Interesting.” I mean, with all of us cousins floating around and a finite number of letters in the alphabet, names are bound to be recycled. I know there’s lots of Jocelyns in the world, and never once did I ever think that this child was named “after” me, since my cousin and I don’t have a huge amount of interaction. Jocelyn just happened to be a name that she liked. S’cool. Then, I saw that they had already nicknamed their new daughter “Jozi.”

Well, now, that’s different. After all, now this is me they’re talking about. Another jozi-short-for-jocelyn. How did that happen? Who looked at that baby and said what I have heard MANY times: “Yeah, you’re definitely a Jozi and not a Jocelyn!” Does this baby even know what it means to be a Jozi? Does she understand what it takes to give Jozi meaning rather than just being syllables? Has this baby earned Jozi? Or by some random stroke has she just snatched half of my identity away from me?

So… Jozi… them are some pretty interesting shoes to fill, you know? My cousin has given this baby quite a task.

All trailblazers must have felt this way at one time. It’s hard to pass the torch. Think about Einstein up in Heaven listening to us call anybody we think is smart an “Einstein.” I bet he’s thinking to himself, “Poser.” But at some point one of those generic Einsteins will show up some new theory of matter vs. electricity and he will live up to the name. And the self-fulfilling prophecy has done itself proud. So…

Go forth, baby Jozi. Make me proud.

Oh, and don’t screw this up. I’m watching you.