What’s In a Name? Only The Framework for the Rest of Your Life

Don’t kid yourself, a moniker in early days is a Scarlet Letter for the rest of your life.

“It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to.”

― W.C. Fields

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“What's your name,' Coraline asked the cat. 'Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?' 'Cats don't have names,' it said. 'No?' said Coraline. 'No,' said the cat. 'Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.”

― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

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“What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.”

― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

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Rarely a week goes by in which someone fails to address me via email as “Brain.”

It’s not a big deal. A simple oversight of transposition which garners a chuckle, not outrage.

But it does present a dilemma. Do I bother correcting the offender? And if so, when? After all, time is not a luxury in this situation.

Pointing out their mistake swiftly ends the issue, but risks embarrassing them about something I view as inconsequential.

However, wait too long for the correction, and the offender becomes the offended—as it makes the misnamed seem intent on hanging them with each inch of written or verbal rope provided.

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John Sinclair was the assistant comptroller at the Sheraton Newport Beach, which employed me as a bellman in my early 20s.

He was a nice but decidedly dorky guy who sported a Harry Reams-ish mustache and wore suits I suspect were purloined from his father’s closet.

One day I was hanging out in the lobby, talking with the bell captain, Chris, and the PBX operator, Rene, when John walked by.

“Hey, Chris, Rene, Mike.”

“Did he just call you Mike?” said Rene.

“Yeah, I guess he did,” I replied. “I’m new so he probably doesn’t know my name yet.”

I honestly planned on gently and privately correcting him the next time I got a chance, but before I could, it happened again.

Standing in the hallway of the west tower with some fellow colleagues, John approached from my blind side, and before I knew it…

“Hi, Seana, Phil, Mike.”

“He called you Mike,” said Phil.

“Yeah, I know.”

It was in a dilemma.

Twice I’d let him “Mike me” without any protestation on my part. Once more and it would look like I was purposely playing him for a fool.

So I resolved to clear the air the next time I saw him, no matter what the circumstances.

I got my opportunity just a few days later.

Standing behind the front desk, there was no danger of a sneak attack. With a wall to my back and a 180-degree view in front of me, I was impervious to surprise.

Then, from across the room, I spied John, heading my way.

As he drew closer, I resolved to settle his misnomer in the kindest way possible. But just before lifting his gaze from his ever-present clipboard, Jennifer, Page, and Marcus came out from the back office and joined me at the desk.

John glanced up, and began mowing us down with salutations.

“Hi Jennifer. Hi Page. Hi Marcus. Hi…

“Damn,” I thought. “My name tag.”

It was in full view, and there was no way he could miss the inelegantly engraved “Brian” staring him in the face.

My blood ran cold with the sudden realization that if my true name were revealed in front of the front desk staff, it could be terribly awkward for John.

I foresaw his embarrassment driving him to the bottle, the pipe, and the needle, ruining his career and his life in the process. I couldn’t be responsible for that burden.

In an instant, I raised my hand and ever so slightly and elegantly, just enough to cover my name tag.

“Hi Mike,” he said.

“He called you Mike,” said Page.

“Yeah, he did.”

Now I was fucked.

There was no way I could come back from this.

It was inconceivable that at any time, under any circumstances, I could explain to John that my name was not in fact Mike, nor why I let him think that it was for so long.

So, I continued the ruse—nodding and smiling politely each time he 'Mike’d' me, always careful to cover my name tag and shoot a quick look or a shush to anyone who seemed ready to blow my cover.

Until one day, more than a year later, when John came striding towards a group of us, carrying a look upon his face as if he’d eaten a bar of unsweetened chocolate by mistake.

As he got into range, he zeroed in on his prey, yours truly, but first, lighting up the line of collogues in front of me with all the charm and grace he could muster.

“Hello Sandy. Hello Phil. Hello Mark. Hello Rene.”

And then he got to me.

His face constricted in an ugly spasm as his eyes narrowed and his brows arched.

He seemed to linger just a moment longer on me than he had the rest, and leaning in with an antagonistic charm that made me feel ashamed, he said…

“Hello BRIAN!”

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The process of clearing up a misspoken name may be sticky, but at least it’s within your purview.

However, eliminating an unwanted nickname is an order of magnitude harder, particularly since you’re likely saddled with it from early days.

Elementary school can be brutal if you’re not careful.

The risk is not being bullied, shunned, or made fun of as much as being branded, because if you don’t play your cards right you can end up with a nickname that will scar you for life.

Enjoy your grilled cheese sandwich a little too much at lunch one day? Well, guess what? Your new name is “Cheese.”

You might as well get it tattooed on your forehead because it’s going to follow you wherever you go for the next 20 years.

I had a brush with this fate in second grade when my mother decided—in all her pop culture unawareness—that I should have shoes embossed not with the names of cooler but pricier brands like Adidas or Puma, but with the off-brand Pony, who aggressively announced their second-tier status with a large P-O-N-Y running up the backstay.

“Hey look, it’s Pony Lund,” came the predictable cry eight seconds after I set foot on the playground on the first day of school.

But the nickname gods took mercy on me because five minutes later, David Suchard showed up wearing black and white Oxfords, and, deservedly, received the focus and scorn of the schoolyard’s fashionable set.

The only other close call I had in this area occurred in my pre-freshman summer during football two-a-days.

As gridiron newbies, we weren’t yet deemed worthy of having our identities stitched across the backs of our jerseys. Instead, to make sure the coaches’ beration landed on the right target, a 2-inch strip of masking tape was slapped onto our helmets, our names scrawled across it in Magic Marker.

As we navigated through a series of hellish drills, the coaches sadistically informed us that those whose performance ranked in the bottom 25 percent would have the pleasure of repeating the entire circuit a second time.

First up was the seven-man sled, a device I wished existed only in a perpetual early spring, chained to a fence in the far corner of the field, with ragweed growing up over its skis.

“Drive, drive, drive,” yelled coach Assfuck (not his real name). “Luna, pick it up, you’re falling behind.”

Next was the obstacle course, where walk-on coaches who peaked in high school and never made it out of community college winged tackling dummies at you high and low.

“Move Luna, move. Faster, faster.”

Who was this Luna character I wondered? He better get his shit together.

Then came the 'Big Fours,' a series of hundred-yard increments covered alternately with forward sprints, backward sprints, duck walks, and crab crawls—the last of which left you head down for the length of the field.

It was during this final segment that I heard our team’s apparent weak link chastised yet again.

“Luna, you better get moving. You look like an old lady out there.”

At the halfway mark we were all made to stand along the goal line as the coaches read out the preliminary results.

And sure enough, Luna was in the bottom 25 percentile.

“Who is this Luna guy?” I said derisively to my friend.

“Dude, turn around,” he said, pointing to the back of my helmet.

“You’re fucking Luna.”

I—not having eyes in the back of my head—did not realize that in his haste to label all sixty-five of my teammates, the assistant coach’s scribbled “D” in “Lund” looked like an “A.”

Let’s just say, I quickly picked up my game and thankfully avoided the bottom quartile, escaping a nickname that could have stuck with me through graduation and beyond.

But Chris Stevens wasn’t that lucky.

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I wasn’t really friends with Chris in elementary school, but we ran in the same circles as we had mutual acquaintances.

In LinkedIn terms, he would have been considered a 3nd-degree contact.

Back in the ’70s, they had this bizarre annual event called the Presidential Fitness Council Test, where elementary school kids were tested to see how many push-ups, pull-ups, and line straddles they could do.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was even Chairman of the Council for a while.

The winners in each grade got a medal and a certificate signed by the President.

And though there were always a couple of prepubescent über-athletes at each school that took it seriously, most of us just sleepwalked through the process—doing just enough of each exercise to be deemed respectable.

That’s how the testing started out for Chris.

He got through the line straddles with a decent score and was able to post a reasonable number of pull-ups. But it all fell apart at the push-up mat.

He did seven.

Seven measly push-ups.

To this day I still can’t figure out what happened. He wasn’t a weak or scrawny kid, but for some reason, that was all he did.

Seven.

I’m not a religious guy, but I will swear on a stack of Pumping Iron DVD’s that I never heard anyone call him “Chris” again after that.

He was simply known as “Seven.”

There was no committee meeting to decide it.

No decree from on high.

Just an instinctual understanding from all those who knew him that this numerical scarlet letter was to be his new and permanent moniker.

The transition through intermediate and high school did nothing to erase its hold.

Just like with Norm on Cheers, in any room he walked into, the occupants would simultaneously raise their heads and shout, “Seven!”

And eventually, in some twisted linguistic derivation, the nickname devolved into “Sev.”

I lost touch with Chris, but for all I know, he’s still called “Sev” to this day.

As a nickname, it’s not as bad as “Pony” or “Luna,” but definitely worse than “Mike.”

And just about even with “Brain.”