Have you ever been in the cereal aisle at your local grocery story debating between the bunches and the clusters or the pops and the puffs, only to hear your name called by a face of which you have no remembrance? Yes, it has happened to us all–except me of course. You see I have this name filter that allows me to know the nature of my relationship with anyone: ever-present or forgotten, dead or alive.

In the beginning, there was Justin. Though not my first name, family and loved ones have called me Justin since birth. Why this occurred yet remains a mystery. Coincidence or not, my mother and father also go by their middle names. For quite some time, this name served as my only identity, that was until Pre-Kindergarten.

Until the age of five I knew my name, but had never been called Joseph. When it happened, I did not quite know how to react. The only thing I did know was that I hated the epithet Joe. It was shortly after this point I realized my two names had separate meanings, separate responsibilities. Justin is well-known, well-loved: the first of a new generation. Joseph is well-learned, well-liked: one of twenty-something faces in a classroom. Despite my vehement distaste for Joe, by junior high Jo grew on me. The split began.

While Justin was the funnest cousin, the sweetest grandchild, and the most well-mannered church member. Jo was rambunctious, smart-lipped and, by high school, liable to be under the influence of drugs and alcohol. These characteristics, however, could never cross paths. If they did, my illusions would fail and I would have to find a way to amalgamate all that was Justin Joseph Jo into one person. This of course didn’t happen, for there was at least one more alias to add.

College years brought about the need for a personal renaissance. I had grown weary of Jo and his antics, Justin was too sheltered, and Joseph was still a child. Fret not, for Jodi was the answer to them all. It was he who spoke with power and conviction, he who dressed with the utmost sartorial excellence, he who fearlessly trotted the globe, he whose scholastic endeavors were met with honors, he who has fallen in love more than most, he whose spirit was far beyond his years–the one with the bulletproof smile.

As I have matured, it has been my challenge to make loveable Justin join badass Jo join baby Joseph join everyman Jodi. I have not arrived yet, but one thing is sure. Whenever I am approached by an unfamiliar face, I will always know how we are connected by what they call me.

by Joseph Justin Pye
Atlanta, GA

I’m not quite sure I have a name. Ever since I can remember people have always stumbled over what I think my parents intended it to be. I’m not even sure telling it would do any good. You probably wouldn’t be able to pronounce it. I usually just lie to people, “it’s Jerry”, to eliminate the possibility of an awkward exchange: yelling, questioning, or whispering into the ears of one another. I’m sure those of you with exotic names can agree with me that nine times out of ten when you try to introduce yourself either a stereo blasts, a party starts, a baby cries, or all the above.

It’s providence. Who or whatever up there must agree that my name isn’t a good one. Unique, yes. Good, no. But hey, I’m not complaining. Nowadays it’s not such a bad thing to have what I’ve got, that is, if you’re a terrorist. No two ID’s of mine are the same, achieving what every Al-Qaeda operative trained and ran through a remote deserted desert for: official illegitimate legal documents - all variations of one another, like a game of telephone.

It’s not my fault and it’s not my parents fault. Which, if it’s not really anybodies fault maybe it isn’t even anything. Not even a name. Just an unforeseen eruption of word vomit from my mother’s mouth after laboring for five hours in that sterile white hospital room 49 years ago.

The nurse ran in with her gray clipboard and shouted at my mother, “What are you gonna call it?!”

She said, “Jaron.”

by Jaron Hershel
Washington D.C.

My Polish last name is ten letters long. My Midwestern family has always pronounced it “jake-uh-bow-ski,” stressing the first and third syllables. Naturally, to me, it has been a simple, four-syllable name, as easy to say as Oppenheimer or O’Shaughnessy. Yet for others it’s been one of “those” names, as odd as Lipizanner, or worse, Blagojevich.

People forced to pronounce my name for the first time often give up after the first two syllables. Sometimes they pretend to stutter, saying, “Jakka, uh, Jakku, uh?” as if trying to remember the lyrics to a James Brown song. Or they try to stare my name to verbal life from the roster or clipboard in their hand waiting until the owner of this jacked-up last name chimes in to save them. Then upon being told, “It’s jake-uh-bow-ski,” people smile, saying with false sweetness, “Oh, of course,” before continuing down the list toward their next victim, usually a kindred spirit of mine with one of “those” names from China, or worse, India.

In the sixth grade, my name spawned the utterly stupid insult: Jack-off-a-bow-ski. It was a poor botched insult with a verb smooshed in there. The moniker was, in fact, so dumb that the kids who called me that quit it the same week they started. Maybe because it was too hard to say? Or maybe because they knew that they had not struck upon anything hurtfully cool. They seemed to understand that when you jacked-up someone’s name the result needed to be a short wicked-sweet noun or adjective full of meanness, like calling Heather heifer or Bobby blobby. It made no sense to waste a lot of breath on, “Here comes that Polish dork Matt Jack-off-a-bow-ski” when you could just yell, “Hey, watch out for blobby.”

My first week in college a professor doing roll call called me Matthew “Yah-ku-bov-ski.” I replied, “Actually, sir, it’s Jake-uh-bow-ski.” He said, “Actually, it’s Ya-ku-bov-ski.” I laughed. He was right after all. Why had I been making my name easier to say all these years? His way was a lot more fun. And being a professor, he sure knew how to make it sound harder than it really was.

So now, I can be Matt Yahkubovski, and if I introduce myself thus, you know I’ve either been drinking, or I think you look sympathetic to Polish nationals, or both. However people say it, I’m now content with my name’s odd power, and I revel quietly in the jacked-up-ed-ness it brings to the party.

by Matthew Jakubowski
Philadelphia, PA