My Name: Wherefore Art Thou KishaLynn?
Hi my name is KishaLynn. My nickname is KL and some people also call me Lynn. I kindly ask most people not to call me Kisha. Yet, there are several occasions where people still do.
Being called “Kisha” is my way of distinguishing how people might know me (or not). If someone calls me Kisha, it means one of the following applies:
1. They are my relative. Particularly my mother or father.
Reaction: Do NOT correct. My relatives know what my name is. Especially the ones that named me.
2. They are a stranger that I have just introduced myself to as KishaLynn, and they have automatically shortened it to Kisha without my permission.
Reaction: Correct. Everybody gets 3 Kishas before I start to get pissed.
3. They are someone I have given special permission to call me Kisha.
Reaction: Do not correct. There are very few in this number. If I allow my name to be shortened at all, I typically stick with Lynn.
4. They are a friend or colleague who knowingly disregards my obvious preference and persistent request to be called KishaLynn or KL.
Reaction: Ignore. Which is Do Not Correct, with an attitude!
Maybe I’ll find a better way to address #4 in the future.
Fortunately, most people are compliant and call me KishaLynn, KL, or Lynn to my face and on paper. (I won’t even get into the misspellings!) That is, they comply unless they fit into one of the subsets above. In those cases, I can easily recognize that they are talking to me and I can respond appropriately. That is one of the purposes of having a name.
Now some may ask “What’s wrong with Kisha?” Especially my mother and father–though neither of them have ever asked me.
And to any of them, I would say that there is nothing wrong with Kisha. I ask to be called KishaLynn because my name is both Kisha and it is Lynn. That is the truth.
Now some may ask “What’s wrong with Kisha?” with an attitude.
And to any of them, I would say that there is nothing wrong with Kisha. I love the name Kisha. Kisha is a beautiful name that means many things depending on what website you’re on and what spelling variations you will tolerate. I am in no way denying or rejecting the Kisha part of my name. That would be ridiculous. It’s on my birth certificate. My social security card. My drivers license. On my passport. On my Facebook page. I wear it proudly almost everywhere that I am being who I actually am. (Yes, there are occasions in my life when I am not being who I actually am. Mind your business!) So I ask, what exactly is the problem? Oh, the Lynn. Well, that’s my name too, you see? It’s also on my birth certificate. On my social security card. On my drivers license, passport and Facebook page. So again I ask, what exactly is the problem? Usually that ends that.
Now some may ask, “Why do you let some people call you Lynn?”
And to any of them, I would say it’s because I came of age online. Online you don’t typically use your full real name. Well back in those days you didn’t. When meeting people online, I decided to just use Lynn, which is an psuedo-anonymous enough name for online purposes due to its universality. It’s far more common and thus more nimble than Kisha. Yet it’s easier for me to recall and manage automatically than another random common name like Jane. Most of the people in my day-to-day life that call me Lynn, I either met online, or through someone else I met online.
Then in the real world, I realized there were situations in which using Lynn as my name was advantageous. For example, I use Lynn if I want to remain psuedo-anonymous in the real world for the same reasons I might chose to do so online. Or, I use Lynn if I am introducing myself to someone that is hard of hearing or speech impaired, or would otherwise struggle with my full name of KishaLynn. Lynn is very easy for most to say in some form that it can be recognized and responded to. (See purpose of name above.)
When used in real world interactions with strangers, typically Lynn is a one-time use self-reference. However, some of those strangers have become my friends and associates. As such, they party in my circle of life with the online-turned-offline friends that also call me Lynn.
One last thing about Lynn=>Lynn is a diminutive of the Spanish name “Linda” which means pretty. I like being called pretty. 🙂
The bottom line is that I can call myself whatever I want. It just turns out that I choose to call myself my actual name. And if anyone asked me what it meant to me, and really cared to know and not to judge my decisions about it, then I just might tell them. That includes Mom and Dad.
P.S. There are people in my life that correct others and defend my name even more passionately than I do. There is a special place in my heart for them.
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Do people call you by the right name? Do you defend it? Are you like me? I want to hear your story! Type it below! Go on, I’m waiting!