“So how’s your name most commonly mispronounced?” asked Shawni, my friend’s sister. It was Memorial Day and I had been lucky enough to get invited to someone’s BBQ by my friend Dana.  As more guests jostled the metal gate to enter into the backyard, numerous introductions were made, followed by the customary enunciation of my name.

I looked at her intently for a second and replied “I don’t know, you know people have been mispronouncing my name my whole life.”

”People call her by different names,” Dana interrupted. “Debbie calls her I-dee ,..I call her Ay-day”

“Well how is it supposed to be pronounced?” asked Shawni.

“Like air in Spanish but with a d instead of an r.”

“Aidé. Aidé,” Shawni repeated in a perfect Spanish accent.

“But my family, including my mother, call me Heidi,” some of the other guests began giggling.

“How did that happen?” one of the women asked.

“I think it is the best way that my brothers and sisters found to anglicize my name, and it just stuck. In fact to this day, they enjoy calling me Heidi-Whitey.” And then all the ladies around the table laughed even louder than before.

In all honesty, I rarely notice the way people pronounce my name. Most of the time, I can tell when someone is talking to me, or about me; and for the most part I let people call me what they will or what they can, hoping that they will come closest to the best approximation of what my mother intended.  But even getting down to her intentions is problematic for me.  As the youngest of five children my siblings have important names that seem to carry their own familial and historical weight. The first set of twins (my family consists of two sets and then me), Alma and Saul, are named after people that none us children ever knew but are nonetheless important figures in the Rodriguez chronicles: My sister was named Alma which means soul in Spanish and Ophelia after my father’s mother who died at a very young age in childbirth. Saul was named after Saul Celis who was killed in a wild-west family feud style gunfight when he was 16, in my parent’s hometown; he had been my father’s best friend. The second set of twins, Emma and Bernabe (Bernie) are named after my parents.

But when I asked my mother who I was named after she said, “…I don’t remember if it was a Venezuelan soap opera actress or soap opera character…” Of course, I have no idea who this woman may have been on screen or in real life. And as much as I would like to know what Aide the actress looked like, or whether Aide the T.V. character was the charismatic protagonist of the telenovela, I find some comfort that once free of the obligation to honor their loved ones and themselves, my parents gave me a name that they simply liked and appreciated for the way it sounded. Like aire but with a d.

by Aide Rodriguez
San Francisco, CA

Confucius once said
If the name is not right
Language will carry no might
So my father created my name
By rearranging the sun and moon
Vertically and horizontally
To equip it with all
The forces of yin and yang
Dispersed in the universe

Since I became subject
To a totally different grammar
All people have complained
Or made fun of my name
So harsh and awkward
They conspire to seduce me
To adopt a familiar one
Like Michael in the powerful speech

But to retain the subtle balances
In the wild wild world I wander
To hold my father’s sunbeam
With my mother’s moonlight
I fiercely refuse to change it
Even though I often feel lost
When the sounds I hear
Do not sound like my name at all

by Changming Yuan
Vancouver, Canada

When I was born my parents gave me the name “Elizabeth” and I was called this until I was 8 years old. Then like most other Elizabeths, I became Liz. I think it was friends who started calling me Lizard. I liked it because it was a name no one else had. It was unique to me alone.

I suspect it was the fear of entering JR High that normalized my name back to Liz. And Liz was my name until, at age 25, I asked to be called Elizabeth from here on after. I sent an e-mail to my friends and family and even my landlord. This was met by acceptance and confusion.

Why Elizabeth? Why now? E-liz-a-beth - it consisted of four syllables. It came off the tongue with more effort, thus more distinction. It was nuanced and complicated. It was necessary to make a loophole through. I wanted to control my identity; to tell others who I was. It’s hard though, to change how others see you. So, I decided that if you had known me for at least five years, you could call me Liz.

When I turned 29, I moved to California. Here was my chance! When I said Elizabeth, it was never questioned. But within a year, it was taking a toll on me. Whereas before the multi-syllables were mysterious, now they were burdensome. They seemed ornate and unnecessary. I felt that by going by this name I was somehow betraying my true self.

So once more I started using Liz, without an official announcement. My grad school classmates made the transition easily but my professors were a little slower. Upon hearing “Liz” they would ask if this is what I went by - as if they had been mistakenly calling me Elizabeth for the past 7 months.  Then, yet again, I had to answer the seemingly endless questions. Do you go by Elizabeth or Liz? Which one do you like better?

Just call me Liz, I say. It’ll make it easier for everyone.

by Liz Bacon Jones
Oakland, CA

As Emily Rivens had wanted, the stories that were spun, the explanations as to why why why was media and journalist speculation Bibled into truth. They had jobs to do and that’s what they did. They took meager scraplings of fact and wove them into a comprehensible tapestry with an enticing and fashionable skin-driven photograph. The truth behind the matter remained time capsuled, buried under blogs, op-eds, and special features. Even if Rivens wanted to tell the truth she wouldn’t have been heard amidst the whirring noise of publicity machines, printing presses, and stock footage.

Sadly, Emily Rivens died in a plane accident over the mountains of Chile while she toured South America as a United States ambassador of good will to the ailing continent. Winston Graham had been long out of the public eye, resting in the rural outposts of some French countryside but the eagerness for blood was still threatening and the book was published, per Emily Riven’s instructions, a month after her enormous and CNN Live covered memorial service. Simply entitled The Beard.

The book’s biggest seller was the audio version. Emily Rivens herself narrates like you and her are sitting in her study, smoky bourbon in one hand, the smooth curve of a leather armrest in the other while she orchestrates the telling of her very personal and very Technicolor life. There was no need to interrupt her to ask questions because there were no questions that were required to be asked. The Beard had everything covered.

Turns out Rivens needed to wait for this book to be published not for the accusation of libel but, more importantly, for threat of purposeful defamation of character, back alimony and earnings from a divorce incurred forty years back and many other horrific financial burdens that would’ve rendered the Queen of Queens bankrupt.

Emily Rivens knew the young man who was documented cavorting with her husband. She met him on the set of Jane Eyre where he was a simple pastry caterer and she recruited him, as she usually did, for her husband. You see, Emily married Winston knowing full well the secret he kept. For connections, money, a bank account that grew faster than could be spent all she had to do was keep the secret with him. And pretend that she was blissfully married. For years she adored this arrangement especially after Ganymede was born. She even began entrapping young men to relay back to her husband which he was grateful for. Slowly he grew sloppy and rumors abounded. Gossip blogs began to call her names, or speculating on her own sexual orientation which she found disconcerting because it was lies. Once she was even referred to as “Winston’s beard”. She became enraged by the term, found it ugly and hurtful. She took that inner disgust and brought it with her to the humiliating screen-test audition of Jane Eyre and the whispers of “beards” turned to whispers of “Oscars”. All in all, there was little she could do to counter the incessant babble of celebrity commentators because most of what they claimed was true. As boys dove their suntanned bodies into the pool while her husband fawned over them with gifts, vacations and affections, she carried their newborn baby, her skin growing pasty, her arms flabby and stomach sagging, she turned down offers to star in sequels of poorly attended and reviewed movies. After the wrap of Jane Eyre her publicist suggested she look for “alternate representation” because the potential “approaching bombshell” was “too threatening” to her own “professional career.” She was afraid that this “beard-thing” might not be the easiest thing to “recover from”. That evening she hatched herself a plan to disintegrate the marriage while still maintaining her quality of life and full custody of her son.

The prenup barred her from speaking any truths of their arrangement while in or out of the marriage. She alighted upon reading the word “speaking”.

Emily Rivens convinced her assistant Ursula to convince the young pastry chef that, for Ursula’s own kinky enjoyment, wanted to watch a session of him with Winston and would pay handsomely in weekly deposits of supreme and clean cocaine. He easily complied. The rest is history. At home she sat in front of her vanity mirror and, with the aid of a theatrical make-up artist and vexed former lover of Winston’s, she became the one thing she resented.

But in her resentment she shone and exalted in this new character. It became an emblem of her strength and wit, traits no one thought possible for a girl who played a tomboy turned model in a television series aimed at young girls; younger than the characters on the screen and much younger than the actors and actresses who portrayed them. Emily Rivens surprised everyone and everyone became enamored by her audacity. That was the high she lived on for fifty years, climbing to her legendary spot and staking her claim and hold on the throne of Icon, deservedly and with very little blood on her hands.

by David Morini
Hokkaido, Japan

The Beard (Part 1)
The Beard (Part 2)

BEINASH (pron: bay-nash) often mispronounced ‘buy-nash’, ‘bay-nish’ or ‘b’nash (rhymes with panache) sometimes butchered to ‘beenash’ or mocked as ‘danish’.

The name was originally Beinashovitz but the English spelling is tenuous because at the time of the name’s transfer into English from Yiddish it was hardly a comfortable circumstance of choice or demand on the part of the titleholder.

I’ve found online 16th century Polish tax records with the almost exact spelling which would make sense since my father’s family are from that part of the world, more or less. There are other signs along the way I’ve picked up that spark some recognition of possible connection: there’s an Austrian police chief who was the subject of an Egon Schiele painting named Beinisch, there’s an Israeli supreme court judge named Beinisch, a famous LA bakery named Benesh, a Czech Prime Minister named Benes (pron: Benesh). I’m not claiming relation to any of these luminaries merely an indication of original geographic and linguistic origin.

According to the Museum of the Jewish Diaspora in Tel Aviv the name was perhaps a generic name given to Yeshiva students ‘ ben yeshiva’ (son of the Yeshiva) …ben yish…benish…which I know my Father’s family were. If you break the name down into it’s phonetic Hebrew it translates as ‘ ben ish’ (son of man) which is as generic as one can get.

The reason for looking into the geographic origin of my family name was to discover if there actually is any meaning in it for me. Or was it just assigned at some point in time? Like the color blue was given the name blue. I was trying to understand what the name meant by where it came from and who else had it and once knowing this I could perhaps decide if it related personally to me. Well, I haven’t really cleared that up - it’s a name shared by Jews and non-Jews. There are Austrians and Poles and Czechs with some version of the name. And here I am a South African Jew living in America…so at best I can deduce that the name itself doesn’t have any metaphysical relation to me as a person…

All I know for sure, though, is that when my Grandfather got off the boat from Lithuania to South Africa in the mid 1920’s he lopped of the ‘ovitz’ and become Maurice Isaac Beinash and much later Zaida (Grandfather) Maurice, but that’s another story…

by Adam Beinash
Studio City, CA

There are two stories to my name.  The mom story and the dad story, and I’m not sure if either are actually true.

The mom story goes a bit like this: Once, a long, long time ago (1982 to be exact) a very pregnant woman was enjoying a quiet walk through a field.  (No joke, my mom really was walking through a field.  She used to work at a living history museum as the blacksmith’s wife, so she actually did things like walking through fields and baking pies and spinning wool.)  She walked through the field, this pregnant woman, and thought about names for her unborn baby.  Edmund James, Tiffany Rose, Jacob Emerson, Emma Rose…  Emma Rose… Emma Rose.  And LO AND BEHOLD, the mother knew the baby would be a girl and she would be called Emma Rose.

Okay, so maybe when my mom tells it I don’t sound like the savior incarnate but that’s what happens when you hock out your newborn to play Jesus in the Christmas nativity scene.

The dad story goes like this: There was once this guy who was in love with Emmy Lou Harris.  So in love in fact that given the chance, he would gladly trade in his very pregnant wife for a little whoo-hoo with Emmy.  Not that the father is a bad guy, he’s a great guy in fact, maybe the best guy ever but truth be told, he’s still a guy.  And at times his ‘little guy’ still rules over everything else.  And even though his wife was generally considered a ‘real catch’, he still might risk all that for a shot at Emmy Lou, if given the chance.  (Twenty years later, he actually finds himself in Emmy Lou’s dressing room.  Sure, she’s beautiful.  And sure, maybe if he tried hard enough he might just get that chance. But when it comes down to it, he’s older and tired and he’d just rather go home and get into bed with his wife.)  In any case, he wants to name the baby after Emmy Lou but the wife, understandably, isn’t too keen on the idea so they compromise.

So Emma Rose the “and so it shall be” baby and Emma Rose the chick-I’d leave-your-mother-for baby.  Either way, is it any wonder I’m always uncomfortable when people call me by name?

by e. miller
Oakland, CA

Three days before Emily Rivens’ premiere of Jane Eyre starring herself as Jane and a young television heartthrob coated in make-up, wearing a padded suit as Edward Rochester, the internet was flooded with NSFW photos and video depicting Winston, her husband and longtime accused homosexual, of passionately indulging in what had been nothing but rumor and speculation. Until then.

The 20 minute clip showed Winston Graham and an unknown, handsome young Latino, filming each other on a yacht that was floating in the middle of an ocean. Some speculated it was just off the California coast while others believed it was shot during downtime in the Mediterranean while Graham filmed the third movie in the successful Spencer: For Hire franchise.

Within a day the boy was located and an exclusive interview was conducted but with his face shaded, his voice neutralized, expressing his fear of retaliation on the part of his one time lover. Why he bothered to shield his identity when, by then, hundreds of journalists stormed his numerous public education schools to gain access to yearbooks and school paper articles, was the idea of his face-time craving attorney.

Emily Rivens remained silent behind the ivy choking walls of her Frank Lloyd Wright designed home. No one came in or out and it was well known that Winston Graham was collecting his forces on the other side of the meridian, in Stockholm, for a barrage of lawsuits from his side of the fence and everyone else’s. His team was spinning illusions, smoking smoke and shattering mirrors, giving Silicon Valley too much credit for technology far from executable by saying the footage had been doctored. When he managed to contact his wife she, a personal friend suggested to People, told him she was humiliated and wanted no part in this double life he had been leading and told him to “F@ck off.”

Rivens’ first public appearance was impeccable, transcendent and legendary. Entertainment news rocked back and forth that week, never having so much fodder to gorge upon. Two wild stories in the space of a week, the later trumping the former.

When asked if the rumors were true, she responded, “What rumors?” and smiled. When asked if there was to be a divorce, she responded, “I’m not sure I’m the right person to ask.” When asked what would happen to her infant son, she responded, “Ganymede’s only concerns right now are when he gets to suckle from my breast. Other than that, I worry about his regular diaper changing schedule. Please, enjoy the movie.”

Years whirled on; The Beard became an icon for homosexual men everywhere. Her grace and poise in stepping around being viciously lied to and trodden on, even by gays themselves, led her to rise like an Airbus 360 into their rainbow skies triumphant and sexy. Rivens went from mousy teenage soap star to haphazard and lukewarm actress to Halloween costume worthy, remarkable in the literal sense, and queen of telling it like it is with the wit of Mae West and the audacity of Rosie O’Donnell. She was trumpeted as the prophet of the return to the nitty-gritty, not so nice Golden Era of Hollywood.

Near Rivens’ retirement she was interviewed for Barbara Walter’s 10 Most Intriguing People of the Year hosted by Ruby Galaouix where she stated that she had written a memoir but was unable to publish it because of truths that would be contested to the point of exhaustion and she didn’t have it in her.

“Are you saving someone? Winston, perhaps. Some undue embarrassment?”

“Saving? Undue? He’s had his embarrassment and he’s past due. No, Ruby, I’m not interested in inflating the egos of judges or enriching the soil of our civil dispute judiciary system. They don’t need my legacy buggering up their tubes. This book deserves an unchallenged release and it will have what it deserves. It’s going to have to wait for me, or everyone else in it, to keel over.” And she looked into the camera, stroking her cheeks with her diamond ringed hand. “Either way, it’ll get out.”

Queens all over the country placed bets on who would kick the bucket first; The Beard or Winston Graham. Las Vegas casinos got in on the action and added a category for the two celebrities on their gambling boards. But the looming question remained: What could be more damaging than what had happened nearly forty years previous? Turns out quite a bit.

by David Morini
Hokkaido, Japan

The Beard (Part 1)
The Beard (Part 3)

How can a person who is an Only Child - me - wind up in such a mess and at such a tender age, too?

Many years ago, after twelve years of marriage and a fitful, but singular pregnancy, my mother had me. She was ready with two boys’ and two girls’ names, picked out so she’d be ready to fill out the resultant hospital forms when she was called upon to do so.

But here’s the dicey part: The woman who was to become my godmother (and my mother’s best friend) was at the hospital keeping my father company while my mother was upstairs giving birth to me. She, herself, had a four year old boy, and she desperately wanted another child, hopefully a little girl, but it hadn’t happened. Indeed, it never did. My soon-to-be godmother liked the name “Susan.” In fact, she LOVED the name Susan. Somehow, in the melee that was the day I was born, the decision about my name came down to her because everybody else was either too busy elsewhere or so excited at my arrival. She told the nurse in charge of such things that she “thought” my mother wanted to name me Susan.

And so it was. For all of my first five years, I was called Karen, the name my mother chose. However, my birth certificate said I was officially Susan. It wasn’t until I got to kindergarten and my legal docs had to be produced that this became an issue. My mother, always one not to get too excited about such technicalities, never bothered to change it. Now, she couldn’t understand why the school was being so hard-assed about a simple thing like a mix-up with a name, for heaven’s sake. That Susan could have been Karen’s sister (and a different person altogether) made no sense to her because SHE knew who I was.

Of all people, she should have known better. When my mother was born, many years ago and when most normal births took place at home, the doctor and everyone else in the family in the house that day - and probably lots of neighbors and friends, too - got drunk shortly after my mother’s arrival on the planet. You see, she was the first female born in a family that already had six boys. My poor maternal grandmother had no girl’s name chosen. She just assumed she’d have another boy, and she had Anthony picked out. My mother became Anthony.

It wasn’t until years later, as an adult, when she had to go to the office where such records are kept that she discovered there was indeed two Anthonys. ( My mother has a younger brother named - you guessed it - Anthony.) She immediately knew what had happened because Anthony Number 1 was born on her birthday and Anthony Number 2 was born on her younger brother’s date of birth. Just as an aside, in what seems to be a crazy family tradition, and to make matters even more complicated, he was never called by his given name. He was called Boze, which is another story for another time. If somebody said something to me about my Uncle Anthony or worse, my Uncle Tony, I didn’t know who they meant. Uncle Boze, yes - Uncle Tony, no.

Anyway, I still have that document of long ago that says I was a Susan. I also have a document that says I’m now a corrected Karen. I would have made a happy schizophrenic.

by Karen Segboer
Warwick, NY

My name is Liz and my middle name is Bacon. Yes, Bacon. No, I’m not kidding. The first day of preschool I was so excited that I told my classmates my middle name. “Bacon and eggs! Bacon and eggs!” they sang. It would not be until I received my driver’s license at ago 16, would the fact of my middle name surface again. And only because showing off my driver’s license, a prized commodity, would reveal the name. I never asked my Mom why my middle name was Bacon. I just eventually came to know it. Bacon was my Mom’s maiden name. As I would come to explain, this was not a name my parents choose for me, but a name I inherited.

by Liz Bacon Jones
Oakland, CA

The film premiere of Jane Eyre in West Hollywood starring Emily Rivens was to be the gold-plated medallion that defined her otherwise mediocre career.

When she stepped out from a black stretch Cadillac limo taking the breadbox hand of her body guard; when her red Hermes heel clicked on the pavement and she rose into the flooded photographic light with her limp and lucid Gaultier dress, her brown, tightly woven hair and her eyes sparkling with sobriety she sent a ripple of gasps followed by an echo of digital flash and the imitation click-n-whir tones of digital cameras.
Forever after that Thursday evening; in trivia, on game shows, or hair salon small talk, she was known as “that actress who wore the beard”. Or, more simply… The Beard.

Emily Rivens grinned in spite of the uncomfortable glue and crinkle of faux skin, a beard perfectly manicured and curiously attractive on her high cheeked and china bone skin. She smiled virgin white teeth and regally waved towards that inhale of documentarian breath which was exhaled in an onslaught of questions.
“Is divorce pending?” “Are the rumors true?” “What will happen to baby Ganymede?”
In fact, Baby Ganymede did follow in the arms of Ursula, Emily Rivens’ personal assistant and rumored cocaine addict, friends of Mary-Kate. His one and a half-year old cherubic face was alight with confusion and curiosity at the adults that paid him and his mother so much attention.

Rivens’ moment was a triumph, though personal in every way. To the dismay of her distributor and Jane Eyre’s producers, her stunt did nothing for critic satisfaction or audience turn-out. What her guerilla performance did initiate was a crack in the nauseous veneer of new millennia celebrity. Once it was established that Rivens was neither drunk nor mentally fatigued; that all her faculties were in as much of a row as ducks crossing the street to Boston Common; that her publicist was taking a backseat neither denying nor confirming that she assisted in this dramatic metaphorical press release; the weekly glossy magazine purchasers revolted and demanded more from their starlets. The bar had been raised. They wanted more guts. Suddenly, any boring, dull and playing-it-safe celebrity went under with the red carpet tide while those with the personalities of fireworks, cheetahs, and jalapeños took center stage. But in any uprising there has to be a sacrifice.

Emily Rivens was married to one of the most powerful men in Hollywood and two year consecutive winner of Sexiest Man Alive as told by Vogue 2007 and 2008. Every year, for the past ten, he starred in an action/sci-fi/thriller flick that internationally grossed more millions than China had people. He consistently brought home the goal of blockbuster. Some would say it had to do with his talents as an actor, his ability to bring human life and morality to roles intended to be gritty, action oriented, and militaristic. Others would say that his ability to adapt and then to quickly be forgotten saves him from viewer fatigue, that every year he’s like a new puppy because we inevitably forget that he already came around once before. Either way, he was huge. And his name was Winston Graham.

Strangely enough, as years weather The Beard’s story into legend, when people discuss her they often fail to know the reason for her facial growth. Little did Emily realize that her gesture would blind too well, get her point across too clearly, that her ripple would overshadow even the circumstances they were representing. The persona of Winston Graham made it out of the foxhole alive and well, reputation intact only after fifty years of gestation. Two years post-The Beard his career tried to hurdle the mass deception with a Christmas feel-good, track coach teaches the handicapped high school flick but fell flat with a face full of white marking chalk.

by David Morini
Hokkaido, Japan

The Beard (Part 2)
The Beard (Part 3)