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

We haven’t been born yet. Our parents are stretched out on the couch in front of the television in their new house, quiet street, nice suburb of Boston. My mother’s socked feet rest in my father’s lap; her pregnant belly rounder than either of them thought it would be.

It is evening. Outside, the sun feels so close, we think it is setting on our parent’s new life, just for us. A light breeze makes curtains flutter and lavender shadows begin to slink across the freshly painted walls. The lawn outside is green and mowed. A yet-to-be-used swing set sways gently in the wind. Small children squat in driveways nearby, playing, digging, babbling. They will be our friends later.

There will be two of us soon. Our parents want to be surprised – the room upstairs is gender neutral. Four names are written on note cards and spread out on the floor: Lisa, Robert, Sarah, Jeffrey. Our middle names have meaning, but our first names are just names our parents like: they way they sound, they way they look. Maybe they can imagine calling us nicknames: Lis, Rob, Sar, Jeffie. Maybe they can imagine scolding us, and these names are not so harsh when said in a mouthful of disappointment. They tear off small sections of The Boston Globe, scrunch them up into tiny balls, throw them at the cards on the floor. These will be their babies. This is where they’ll play.

We know better than our parents. We know which names we want. When we come out we will scream and cry but inside we are laughing, we are squirming, we are playing. We are best friends. We are what every parent wants, but we are our parent’s children, and we can’t wait to meet them. We know they will love us. We long for their arms and their hair and the cribs that wait for us upstairs, fluffed with pillows and stuffed animals that family and friends have been sending and sending.

It’s the first of the year when we are born. For miles and miles, all across the country, streamers ripple, horns are blown, people kiss under twinkling lights. In the small, dark hospital room, the air is plush with nervous breaths. Will we be boys or girls?

My brother comes out first. “It’s boys!” the doctor calls.

“Jeffrey,” my father says, holding him for the first time. “Jeff.”

I am inside, and I am ready. I can’t wait to show them who I am. My brother has paved the way for me, and I slide out easily, but wrong. I’m upside down – the doctor turns me over and gasps.

“It’s a girl!”

“Jackpot!” my father says. He waves his arms and claps his hands. Jeffrey wails. Our four grandparents, standing right outside the room behind the door, squeeze their smiles through the tiny window.

“Name?” the doctor says.

“Lisa,” my mother says. My mother cries, and so do I.

by Lisa Gordon
San Francisco, CA

Having a female name has never bothered me.
I cannot recall ever being teased,
although some folks I meet are confused,
thinking I couldn’t be Leslie
and wondering in what way
I presume to represent her.

Leslie as a male name wasn’t popular
even as long ago, 1945, as I was born.
Leslie, according to babynames.com,
peaked in 1902 at slightly less
than 2 percent of all names given
to boys born in the U.S.A. that year.

However, “there was a period before 1945
when more boys were given the name.” I ride
the tail of an echo! “From 1946 on,
increasingly more girls than boys
were named Leslie. In 1997, girls named
Leslie outnumbered boys by 18 times.”

I get lots of junk mail addressed
to Ms. Leslie Gottesman,
and my wife and I get commercial appeals
aimed at lesbian couples.

But I like the name Leslie. As a young man
I was known as Leslie.
I like Leslie better than I like Les—
though Les is okay and is how everyone
knows me, except bureaucrats.

Some things do bother me.
No matter what they guess my full name might be
(Lester? Laszlo?) almost everyone
who meets me riffs in some way on
the proposition “less is more.”
It seems to be irresistible, often
even apologized for, and then delivered!
I never know what to say to this icebreaker

My last name translates from German
as “man of God,” which I always, humbly,
annotate that no doubt one or more
rabbinic father-son franchises, dynasties even,
existed in every eastern European shtetl
such as my grandparents fled
to the U.S.A. from. But I think that more likely
flourished hard-core layabouts
supported and tended by wives and daughters
while they studied the Talmud, daydreamed,
and maybe drank. I’m sure
every shtetl had several of these,
stoners of their time and targets
of the sarcasm “god’s man.”

But my pettest peeve is my own
unsuppressable reaction
to the homonyms of Les and Leslie.
Whether it’s a meeting around a table
or an outdoor rally of thousands,
if the holder of the floor concludes
her remarks with “Lastly…”—I snap
to attention as though it’s me
who’s been directly addressed.

I have met another Les Gottesman,
Lester Gottesman, a doctor I saw
when I was taken ill in New York one time.
An affable, Irish-looking red-haired man,
he stared at pages in a folder on his desk
for a long time and shook his head.

“I’m not used to seeing my name
on that part of the chart,” he said.

by Les Gottesman
San Francisco, CA

One of the few lines I remember from Pulp Fiction is: “I’m American, honey. Our names don’t mean shit.” This is one of the first things Bruce Willis’ character says to his French love interest. I totally disagree. So does the writer; Butch is a boxer, which makes the line hilarious.

My first name is Lisa, middle name Jan. I prefer my initials and have since approximately 1996. No, I’m not transgendered. No, I don’t have anything against my parents. At this point, I’ve gone by L.J. for so long that some people don’t know what my full name is. But some people who do often resent my not using it on a day-to-day basis.

My parents, like most Jews, named me after beloved deceased relatives. My dad wanted to name me Jan after his cousin; Jan died at the age of 11 because she “had a hole in her heart” and besides this sad fact, she was rarely mentioned again. My dad wanted her name and her spirit to be continued. Suspicious family members considered this bad luck, so Jan became my second name. Lisa is for my Hebrew name Leah, after my great-grandmother, a small, tough woman who was nicknamed “The General” by her son-in-law, and possibly (shanda!) of some Italian descent. Her daughter, my grandmother, called me Leah-lah. Leah means weary. It also means ruler or mistress in Assyrian. Leah was a matriach for the 12 tribes of Israel. She had “tender eyes” and cried a lot, probably because she was a prophet. Maybe she was simply weary from having seven of Jacob’s kids. All sons, no less! People have asked me why Jews don’t simply give their kids the actual Hebrew names instead of Americanizing them; assimilation, I guess. I was this close to being Lena, or Lori, Lissette.

So, why L.J., after all this? After I graduated from college, I made an autobiographical 16mm film that was screened at NYU, on Manhattan Cable, and in the living rooms of my family and friends. Somewhere during the creative process that began as a music video concept and ended with my submitting the piece to festivals, I changed my name. Or rather, I reverted. My dad has always called me Lisa Janny and referred to me as L.J. when I was a very small kid. I associate the nickname with buoyancy and positive memories. When I sent the film out, I used my nickname to represent the part of me that is unfettered and creative. L.J. pursued what she wanted to without worrying about the consequences. After I moved on to new projects and jobs and relationships, I wanted to hold on to that essence.

What’s interesting, though, are the challenges that using a nickname presents. There are many people who will always call me Lisa and think L.J. is ridiculous, weird, or masculine. One ex-boyfriend says “L.J.” sounds like a truck driver. Another friend says it’s too southern for a girl from Brooklyn. (Although on Avenue X it made a hell of a lot of sense.) Plus, I’m not going to call my doctor and make an appointment for L.J. Not to mention I certainly don’t want to be called L.J. in bed. But now, Lisa sounds harsh to me. Incomplete, even.

Plus, nicknames are cool, let’s face it. I’ve worked in offices where there are 5 Lisas, but only one L.J. And, as crass as it sounds, in the competitive, narcissistic society we live in, having a brand for yourself is important. Our names represent us first and foremost, before any of our qualities can be assessed.

What has emerged is a tiered system. Naturally, my mom calls me Lisa. I tolerate certain old friends calling me Lisa and I don’t blame them; that was how I referred to myself when we met. With new friends I am L.J. but I always tell them what the initials reference. At work I always use my initials, which often requires support from Human Resources. I like close friends and men with whom I am or want to be romantically involved to call me Lisa Jan. It feels special and endearing. And of course, to my dad, I’ll always be Lisa Janny. (Or Munchkin Lady, or in honor of my long-gone pacifier, Nippis Pippis Van Flippis.)

Using my nickname makes me feel good about myself and differentiates me. But maybe more than anything, L.J. keeps my full name, and the meanings behind it, intimate.

by L.J. Fogel
Los Angeles, CA