“A person's name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

—Dale Carnegie

***

What's in a name? For many, our name is representative of our heritage, culture, or something of significance to our parents. I once worked with a man named Paris and believed his name was more feminine than masculine. I was surprised when he agreed with me. He beamed when he told me that that's where he was conceived while his parents vacationed there. In his mind, that vacation was more special than any other they would take. Feminine or not, he was proud of his name and why he had it. Paris was lucky. He had a name that is easily pronounced. My first name is unusual and is often mispronounced. I have met only a handful of individuals who share my name. The phonetic enunciation is “ee-VET,” and it is of French origin. I grew to like my name over the years because it was different, and I got a kick out of informing people that it was French. I used to marvel at being Black and having a French name. As a kid, somehow that made me feel cool. People who get it right on the first attempt tend to pose it as a question, “Yvette?” rather than saying it with confidence. For some reason, people find it necessary to sound out the letter Y. Classmates struggled far less saying my name than faculty and required correcting only a few times before nailing it every time. My high school history teacher butchered my name as “Ya-Vetter” every single day no matter how many times I corrected her. It's exhausting to fight a battle that you'll never win, so I stopped correcting her and decided to try something else. My grandmother used to say, “It's not what they call you—it's what you answer to.” Following her sage wisdom, I decided not to respond when that teacher mispronounced my name. As a 16-year-old, not answering to an authority figure is a big mistake. I stood my ground for nearly a week until it almost got me suspended. I guess she got fed up with my rebellion. She won the battle and pronounced my name incorrectly for the entire school year. The Catholic high school I attended was diverse, but the faculty was 100 percent White. The faculty members who habitually mispronounced my name made me feel like an outsider. I wondered why they didn't care enough to get it right. The irony of educators unwilling to learn how to correctly pronounce students' names did not make sense. By contrast, students were forbidden to mispronounce the teacher's name. It was considered a sign of disrespect to say Mr. or Ms. (fill in a last name) and not get it right. When substitute teachers were called in, they genuinely struggled with non-Anglo-American sounding names and, sadly, never once asked the appropriate student whether they got it right or for assistance in pronouncing it correctly. But when your name is mispronounced most of your life, you get used to hearing it annihilated in more ways than you thought possible and take responsibility to ease the discomfort of the offender. Imagine the roll call going in a smooth rhythm of saying a name, pausing for a second to look for or hear a signal: Crystal, Josh, Steven, Mary, Brittany, and then the next sound is “uh” or “hmmm” or my favorite “I'm not going to say your name; I'll just spell it.” In school, you knew when it was your name that broke the rhythm as you consistently heard the name preceding yours, so jumping in with a quick response restored the rhythm and reduced the awkwardness. A post on FastCompany.com paints a clear picture of the lived experience and the impact of enduring a lifetime of people refusing to learn and correctly pronounce someone's name:

Not much has changed over the decades. Those of us with unusual and unfamiliar names still find that the onus is on us to ease the discomfort of those refusing to learn to say our names correctly. It's understandable when we first encounter a name to initially mispronounce it. It's the unwillingness to learn the pronunciation that's the issue. I find that I am less offended when people who mispronounce my name are making a sincere effort to learn how to say it correctly and more offended when they continuously mispronounce it after they have been corrected several times. It's like saying “I don't care how you say your name; I'm going to call you what I want to call you.” BBC.com reports:

If you are a name butcher, it is incumbent upon you to learn how to correctly pronounce the names of others and not force them to surrender part of themselves for the sake of your comfort. The practice of making the attempt, botching it, and then glossing over it as if nothing happened has harmful effects. Consistently mispronouncing a co-worker's name has a big impact over time, and so does saying it correctly. For individuals who experience discrimination based on their identity, persistent mispronunciation of their name can feel like erasure or insulting. People invest the time to learn new languages. Why not names? Learning to correctly pronounce names requires far less effort and energy than learning a new language, and the return on the investment yields more inclusive cultures and a sense of belonging. The person who has mastered the correct pronunciation is perceived as someone who respects the feelings and identities of others while the recipient feels more valued and seen. Everybody loves it when their name is spoken correctly. It is a big part of who we are and expressions of our individuality. We may have co-workers who have chosen a preferred name that better aligns with who they truly are, and they abandon the use of their government name altogether in the workplace and social settings or may, in fact, legally change their name. As the workforce becomes more diverse, so will the names of individuals we work with. Learning to say unfamiliar names or remembering when someone has a preferred name will require practice and patience with intention. Champions of inclusion build and enhance relationships by approaching individuals' names with the intent to create a sense of belonging. We are intentional about not only working toward saying people's names correctly but also spelling it in the way that they spell it in written communications and using preferred names. While Brian is commonly spelled with an i, others may spell it as Bryan. Does your colleague spell her name Teresa or Theresa, Michelle or Michele? It's important to get it right. The three basic rules for being respectful of people's names are the following:

• Pronouncing it correctly
• Spelling it as the name owner spells it
• Remembering to use preferred names

Normalizing our approach to getting names right can diminish the discomfort and embarrassment over not knowing how to say something. Inclusion requires a learning mindset, and we must learn how people want to be addressed and respond accordingly.

Actions

Read the full article cited by FastCompany.com. It advises:

Action Accelerators

• NPR.org: “What Listeners Told Us About the Importance Of Getting Names Right,” Clare Lombardo: www.npr.org/2021/05/02/989609197/what-listeners-told-us-about-the-importance-of-getting-names-right
• HBR.org: “If You Don't Know How to Say Someone's Name, Just Ask,” by Ruchika Tulshyan: hbr.org/2020/01/if-you-dont-know-how-to-say-someones-name-just-ask
• YouTube.com: Getting it right; why pronouncing names correctly matters, Gerardo Ochoa, TEDxMcMinnville: www.youtube.com/watch?v=58tDCaEWfHI
• ADP.com: “10 Best Practices for Using Preferred or Chosen Names at Work,” by Brett Daniel: www.adp.com/spark/articles/2022/06/10-best-practices-for-using-preferred-or-chosen-names-at-work.aspx

Sources Cited