Naming Conventions

I should explain a little about my name because that does seem to confuse people.  First of all, let me assure you that I AM aware that Jimmye is a boy's name.  Problem is that when I was picking out a new name, I didn't have a choice.  I had to pick a boy's name because all of the women in my family have boys' names.    Consider this:

Mother: Billye
Aunt:    Tommye
Sister:   Cydnye
Niece:   Joeye
Twin Nieces: Arnoldye and Schwatzeneggerye

(Ok, those last two are a joke.....they're not twins.)

This habit of giving boy names to girls seems to be a southern tradition.  What could I do?  Do I seem like someone who would break with tradition?  With a given name of "James," (which I consider my slave name,) "Jimmye" HAD to be my femme name.  I suppose I could have chosen the name "Jaime,"  but it didn't seem right.  When I was a kid, pretty much everyone called me "Jimmy" anyway.  I became known as "James" about the time puberty hit.  By going back and re-claiming the name "Jimmy,"  I felt like I went back to just before my body went horribly horribly wrong and said,  "Yeah, you don't want to go down that road.  It's a dead end. Stick with 'Jimmye.'"

But do you see the pattern in the familial gynoconyms?  They all end in "YE."   You would think that because I follow the tradition and spell my name "j-i-m-m-Y-E," people would realize that it's supposed to be a girl's name.  But no.  Now they just don't know how to pronounce it.  I get everything from "Jim-may" to "Jim-eye."  I even get "Jemima" sometimes.  (I don't know how they get that.)

I have this beautiful Chinese friend who I dearly love but who can't pronounce my first name to save her life.  The closest she can come is something like "chim-ye."   She just gave up after a while and gave me a Chinese name:  "Wu Kong"

I actually liked that name a lot, especially when my dear friend told me that in Mandarin, Wu Kong means "She has no Emptyness."  I was so floored by the honor she was giving me that I said, "Oh, I gotta get a tattoo of this right away."

I went down to the corner tattoo parlor and talked to a man who said to refer to him as "Spotted
Dick."  To this day, I don't know if that was supposed to be a name or a description.

Mr. Dick inspected the sheet of paper I handed him and finally said, "I can do this.  You do know what these characters mean, though, right?"

"Oh yes."  I said, still enthralled by the great honor that had been given me by my wonderful Asian friend.  "It means, She has no Emptyness."

"Close," he said, handing the paper back.  "It actually means, 'She has no hole.'"

Why, that stupid little chink bitch.