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When we lived in Baltimore, my wife worked at Johns Hopkins Hospital (downtown) and she treated a young black girl named "Fallopian". The girl's mother heard it at the OB/GYN's office and thought it sounded pretty.

My wife also called for a girl named "Tane" in the waiting room and pronounced it with one syllable and a long "A". She was then cussed out by this girl for "f***ing up my name" and said it was pronounced "TA-ney" and "the "e" was silent". My wife's response was "Whatever..." Tane reported my wife's racist attitude to the HR department and it was quite a stink.

My wife's response was "Whatever..." Tane reported my wife's racist attitude to the HR department and it was quite a stink.

Did the HR Dept. side with the pretending-to-be-offended person of color who was engaging in "white management"?

If so, did they explain

a) what process of special mentation would inform the person seeing this name for the first time that

i) it was to be pronounced as it was and

ii) the owner was black and likely to get in a snit if a person lacking the proper color attributes got it wrong, and

b) by what magical magisterium HR felt it could manage your wife's "attitude" and sensitization from their own ridiculously supine position on the floor?

Inquiring minds want to know.

An article in our local paper went into these "special" names at some length one day, explaining how the mothers of these persons attach these names to them with the explicit intention of "forcing" the world of authority to "pay attention" to the child as an "individual". Their operative assumption being, apparently, that if they didn't do this, that persons encountering the child in future would naturally not give them any attention at all otherwise. Twisted, but there it is.

Talk about setting kids up to fail.

Some LAST names can be touchy to pronounce, also . . .

I once got a letter from a client's contract manager whose last name was spelled "Fuchs." It took me 2 days to get up enough nerve to call her back. She laughed when I asked how to pronounce her last name. "Foosh," she said, adding that she married into the name.