“Deanna Williams?”
“Dena.”
“How do you spell that?”
“D-e-n-a.”
“Oh...Dena...is that short for something?”
“Nope.”
My name is one of the most mispronounced in all of America, or so it seems. I often get something like Deanna or Dana; the Deanna confuses me because there are no extra 'A's' in my name at all. Just one, there at the end. Dana is kind of understandable; I worked at camp for a summer with a Dana and boy did that get confusing. The different spellings people come up with amuse me too—Deena, Dina, Deana—my name is among the simplest to spell and yet no one seems to be able to get it right on the first try. I've grown fairly patient with this fact, although I was Dean in the yearbook once. Typo.
The strangest misspelling I have encountered thus far, though, was in Uganda. You see, the pronunciation of my name is how they pronounce “dinner.” I told the kids I was teaching what my name was and they hid their faces behind their hands and giggled, whispering to one another in Lusoga. I didn't know why this was for quite a while—not until a girl asked me if “d-i-n-n-e-r” was how I spelled my name. They considered it their personal joke all summer long.
The other ridiculous thing I have trouble understanding is when people ask me if it's short for anything. First of all, the only thing I can think of it being short for is “Pasadena” but what kind, loving parent would name their child after the city that hosts the Rose Bowl? No, my name isn't short for anything. In fact, people usually have to lengthen it in order to give me a nickname.
My name, according to my parents, means “Bright as Day.” My mom wanted to be able to be saying, essentially, “Bright as Day, would you come here?” or “Bright as Day, eat your soup” or “Bright as Day Marie, bend over my knee right now!” I'm sure my mom meant well, but did she realize what she was doing to me when she gave me such an obscure name? Not only an obscure name, but one with a bizarre spelling? She basically signed over the rights to everyone else in the world to be able to mock, tear apart, and misunderstand me for the rest of my life.
Even if she didn't know what she was doing exactly, it was probably part of God's grand plan or something. When I told my best friend what my name means according to my parents, her laughter was like a loud horn blowing a single blast before being quickly silenced when she put her hand over her mouth.
“I'm sorry. Was that out loud?” she asked amid stifled giggles.
The next day she sent me a piece of flair on Facebook that said, “My Indian name is Trips Over Sunlight.”
I think God knew there was a potential in my personality and internal makeup to take life and myself too seriously. So He made me a joke. Having the name “Dena” has certainly proved a source of hilarity; the Trips Over Sunlight thing isn't too far off, really. I trip over everything that has mass. I can manage to stumble over things that do not even protrude from anywhere, like the ground. It's like things just pop up for me to trip over and give everyone else a hearty laugh. Over time I began to laugh too, but my laughter is bittersweet. I know it's a gas, don't get me wrong, but am I always to be the one to give others such an opportunity to relieve themselves from the mundaneness of life?
The fact that my last name is one of the most popular in the whole United States is fairly humorous in and of itself, considering the oddness and rarity of my first name. It's an interesting oxymoron; the surname means the shield or defense of many. I couldn't win with my last name in Uganda either; they just thought my “second name” was comical because it is a boy's name.
So...Bright as Day (Trips Over Sunlight) Shield of Many. If that isn't a joke of a name, I'm not sure what is. Who would really want someone who trips over sunlight to be their shield?
In many countries in Africa your name is supposed to define you, to be a reflection of who you are as a person. On the surface of it all, my name is a farce, so it could be assumed that I am such. The truth is, though, I secretly want to be what my name means. I want to be a light to others, one that shows them this life isn't so bad. The one that when someone's dog just died or they lost their job they can come to for a hug and lightheartedness borne out of my own share of suffering that can show them things aren't so bleak as they feel. I want the plain, contradictory name of Dena Williams to accompany a smile…I just hope that beneath the mockery and joking it means there is a quiet joy and a knowing that when they say it, when they see me, they don’t have to be reminded of what they want to run away from. If having to be reminded of what I have run from all my life does that for them, so be it.
I just keep hoping that sometime, somewhere, someone will do that for me.
