My name is not Susan. I go by my middle name, which is, of course, not Susan. It’s Dawn, in case you are new to my blog. My first name is also not Susan. I just always think of this song when someone still calls me by my first name. I mean, I am pushing 50 and have gone by Dawn since I was 12. That’s a long time to still be calling someone something they don’t want to be called, wouldn’t you agree?
I just finished reading, “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” by George M Johnson. This book is about far more than a name change, but he had a similar issue at one point in the Memoir and it got me thinking, “Why is it so hard for some people to just call me what I prefer to be called?” The last thing I want is for this post to come across as angry, but, to be fair, I have gone by Dawn for over 3/4 of my life. Dawn is on all my social media accounts, my writing, it’s the name I used in school and when I was on the radio. Yet, there are still a few people who insist on calling me by my first name.
One of these people is a close family member. Not only does she call me by the name I hate, she also still introduces me to people by that name – thus they call me that, too! People who have never known me by my first name except for the fact that someone else told them that was my name. During the holidays, one of these people who was told to call me by my first name told my nephew to call me by my first name as well. Honestly, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. None of these people would be calling me anything besides Dawn had one person just starting calling me Dawn when I initially asked. Now it’s spreading like a disease that I feel I have no way of stopping. Why would someone call you a name that someone else told them to call you when you have made it explicitly clear that you prefer something else?
All my friends call me Dawn, all my peers and co-workers call me Dawn. EVERYONE calls me Dawn, except for a few familial holdouts. There is one family member who does appear to try to call me by my chosen name, but she does slip up on occasion. Ironically, she, too, goes by her middle name. I always call her by her middle name. Every. Single. Time. No slip ups.
I’ve considered legally changing my name. However, I don’t think that would stop the people calling me by my first name from continuing to call me by my first name. That’s a real pain in the butt for something that I highly doubt will work anyway. The person in my family who calls me by my first name the most says that she is not able “to get used to” calling me by my middle name. It’s been 35 years. Exactly how long does one need to “get used to” something? She is married and I refer her as her married name. She has been married less than 35 years.
I feel I have a few options here. I could go no contact or low contact with people who refuse to call me by my chosen name. I mean, if they refuse to call me what I prefer to be called, it begs the question, where this is concerned, “Do they even respect or care about my feelings anyway?” And so many other people in our family have gone by nicknames and/or other names that they preferred to their first names. My grandmothers, for example, went by Nay and Shorty. No “grandma” or first names for either of them. I don’t recall anyone in the family calling them by anything except their preferred nicknames.
I could also start calling them by nicknames they don’t like. See, my “first name” they call me by isn’t actually the name. It’s a nickname for the actual name. So, honestly, two can play that game. The person who calls me by my first name the most [and tells others that is my name, too] had an awful nickname that our parents bestowed upon her as a child. She hated it just like I hate my nickname. And I didn’t call her by that nickname. Perhaps I should revive it? Let others know that is her name?
I don’t know, it all seems petty. But I don’t know what to do other than the 5,000 times I have already made it abundantly clear that my name is Dawn. What I can’t do any longer is ignore it. At this point, when someone calls me by my first name, it feels a bit like weaponized incompetence. And I have a very real visceral reaction. Have you been in my situation? If so, what did you do? If not, what would you do and what would you suggest I do?