For an assignment in one of my teaching credential classes we were asked to think of our names. It is what is going to stamp us for the rest of our career as our students mispronounce them, make fun of them, ignore them and just call you Miss or Mister, and all together stomp on them until we don't care what we're called anymore, as long as the students are paying attention.
Anyway! This is what I came up with for my name...
Alex DeHart.
My dad keeps telling my sister and me that we are Italian, "because the Italians are the only ones with a capital letter in the middle of their last names!", he would say. But my mother says that is false. I’ve found that my ancestors are from the heart of England and that’s that.
Either way, I mix them up.
The capital H in my name is pretty important if you ask anyone who knows me. I make it quite a big deal and it creates a prestige that makes me feel like my family is royalty, lets just say we’re up there with the Queen of England. But they aren’t – and if they were, they clearly would have no idea which family they’re from anyhow.
I like to tell people my name means love. But I couldn’t just be Hart because that is too boring, so they gave me a little piece of mystery at the beginning – De. This together means "mysterious love".. Well at least to me.
It is my first name that gives no sort of explanation like "mysterious love", instead I all the sudden lose my gender and have to start defending myself for my parents un-orginiality when naming their last child. It’s a boy’s name! And everyone knows this. When someone sees my name prior to meeting me, they assume I’m going to stand tall, with a deep hearty voice, and a grip of a handshake. They are generally surprised when they see my 5-foot tall frame and hear a higher pitched voice.
Shocked is a better word actually.
My professors never forget me. They call roll… "Amanda Brown" – "Here". "Chad Clark" – "Here". "Carol Dane" – "Here". "Alex DeHart" – "Here". …. It gets silent as they look up at me from their roster with a puzzled look on their face. "A girl? Did I call the name our right?" they think to themselves. And they repeat, "Alex DeHart?". I say again, "Here!". "Oh, you’re a girl.." and right then and there the class is staring at me. "Yes, I am a girl."
The following conversation usually has to do with whether or not Alex is even my full name, and when I say yes, it’s a question of whether I’m telling the truth. It must be impossible for a girl to be named Alex without some sort of explanation to suit the crowd in front of me, but I really don’t have one.
My name is just Alex DeHart. And yes, I am a girl.
I cherish this and I say that it is what makes me unique. I’m not just a girl, but I’m a girl with a boys first name and a rock hard last name regardless of where it comes from.
