Rock-tober 06, 2017

I went to highschool with a girl whose last name had an impossible lack of vowels - Skrmetta. We reconnected recently on Facebook, and I noticed her married name had the same ratio of consonants. I quipped, "I see you're still averse to having vowels in your last name."

Another high school friend of mine had to deal with the surname Klusendorf. Shortly after our recent class reunion, I told her she's still the only Klusendorf I'd ever met. She laughingly said, "Well, if you ever meet another one, you'll know we're related."

I've read humorous accounts where the scenario was flipped. An American lady, married to a Russian, traveled with her husband to his home country. At a checkpoint an immigration official asked for her information. "Name?"
"Marianne Yeshevsky"
"Spell it."
"Y-E-S-H-E..." The annoyed official stopped her.
"I know how to spell 'Yeshevsky'! How do you spell 'Marianne'?"

With my own last name, it's a given people are going to butcher the pronunciation. Whenever I'm asked for it, I'll say it slowly and spell it since, interestingly, people tend to stick an "L" in it (Ku-Pool'-Yun). Every now and then, someone will also ask for my first name because they want to make sure they've got the "right 'Capuyan.'" I'll oblige, but I'm wondering just how many Capuyans they know.

Andrea didn't have this problem with her maiden name. "Wilt" is a simple, single syllable, Anglo Saxon derivative no one's tongue ever tripped over. She jokingly admitted if she'd married a man named "de Flowers," she would have definitely hyphenated. Of course, that's not to say she's not had any fun being Mrs. Capuyan. One year, she was checking into a conference.

"Last name, please."
"It's 'Capuyan'".
"Spell that, please."
"C-A-P-U-Y-A-N"
"Huh. That's an interesting name. Is it Bohemian?"
My blue-eyed, red-haired, freckle faced wife gave a mischievous smile. "Nope. It's Filipino."
The receptionist paused and just stared at her with a very confused look.

Dad figured out how to sidestep the whole mispronunciation issue. His nickname at every duty station in the Navy was simply "Cap." Brilliant. When the Navy gave me orders to a new ship, I decided, "Well, it worked for Dad..." The minute someone showed the slightest difficulty, I asked them to, "Just call me 'Cap'," and for a little while the family Naval tradition continued for a second generation.

It's been said that your last name is one of the first gifts your father ever gives you. As such, it's something you should cherish and make every attempt to keep unblemished. Jim Croce understood this. In his soulful rendition of "I've Got a Name," he sings, "I got a name. I got a name. And I carry it with me like my daddy did."  The song would likely have been his biggest hit. Tragically, he only performed it publicly a few times, and it was literally the last song he played before a plane crash took his life in 1973. It was released posthumously and peaked at #10 on Billboard's Hot 100.