British people seem incapable of getting to grips with those pesky 'foreign' names. And, yes, I do mind
Delighted as I am to receive cards wishing me a happy new year, I can't help but notice the infinite variations of the spelling of my name. What is it, I wonder, that would make a person think it was less of a faux pas to massacre a person's name on paper than to check the spelling first? Couldn't they ask someone ? me, perhaps? Or Google? Instead they think, oh, I'll have a stab, it doesn't matter if I get it wrong. The subtext of which, broadly speaking, reads: it's a funny foreign name, so she won't mind.
In Britain there's an odd social awkwardness around unfamiliar names. Introductions often go something like this. Hello, I'm Aminatta. Blank stare. Am-a-what? Repeat name slowly syllable by syllable. Pause. My, that's an unusual name. Where does it come from? Does it mean anything? Well, sort of. I mean most names have a meaning like Peter, the Rock. But I know from experience the questioner is usually looking for something more, well, anthropological: Running Goat, perhaps, or She Who Has Been Asked This 1,000 Times. I say my name doesn't have a meaning and the disappointment is palpable.
I am lying, of course. My name means "honesty". At least that's what I've been told, just as girls called Jennifer are told their name means "beautiful". Aminatta is a name of Arabic/Muslim extraction. Amina bint Wahb was the mother of the Prophet Muhammad. Aminatta is a west African variation meaning "little Amina". Usually I can't be bothered to explain this. My father was a non-practising Muslim and I am not the least religious. Aminatta is a common name throughout west Africa, just like Mary. The last time I told someone my name was Muslim he said: "Hey, you're not going wage a jihad or anything?!" See what I mean? So if he'd just met someone called Mary, would he think it amusing to ask if she was still a virgin.
The British love to joke about people's names. None of this ever happens to me in Spain or Poland, in Kenya or California. If someone jokes about your name you are supposed to take it in good stead. But why? I don't joke about anyone's name, partly for fear of being thought a bore, and partly ? here we begin to risk accusations of PCGM (political correctness gone mad) ? because it seems in danger of insulting origins, bloodlines and nationalities.
"Oh I'll never remember that," said another chap. How, I wondered, did he ever learn a new word. Onomatopoeia, for instance? Sympathetic friends remind me that my name is "quite difficult" for some people, and yet the least ardent football fan seems capable of mastering Roman Abramovich, Sven-G�ran Eriksson, Emmanuel Adebayor.
And no it doesn't get shortened.
I am about to go to America. There, to my immense relief, there is no such awkwardness. Perhaps it is because the US is a more ethnically diverse society. Call an office, hotel, or helpline and the person at the other end will calmly ask: Can you spell that for me? Or: am I pronouncing that correctly, Miss Forna? Oh, you are, yes you are!
Curiously juxtaposed with the British inability to cope with a new name is a growing enthusiasm for unusual baby names: we're thinking of calling her Montserrat, say the pregnant couple, where she was conceived.
In Britain we need a new model of etiquette. Can we learn from our American friends? I don't expect you to get my name perfectly first time around. But spare me the quips and the questions. All I want you to do is ask, politely: am I pronouncing that correctly? And if you write to me, check the spelling first.
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