What’s in a Name?
11 November 2004
I have always been quite fond of my first name, which is Renée. According to family legend, I was named after my dad’s two prettiest cousins; Renee being the prettiest. In English there are many ways to spell Renee, the most popular variations being Renae or Rene. When my parents decided to name me Renee, another family legend tells that my uncle did research to determine the proper spelling of Renee and concluded that “R-e-n-e-e” was correct.
I always knew that my name was French and took great pride in the fact that I had a name that wasn’t duplicated in my class: We had two Amys, two Michelles, and two Lisas. For some reason, until I was 14, I was under the impression that my name meant “queenly.” Of course, this may have had something to do with the fact that my family thought that such a definition of my name fit me, but I never argued. I thought it the meaning was fine too!
However, when I learned French, I found to my surprise that my name actually means “reborn.” While I was slightly disappointed that the royal connotations were gone, I was content with the proper meaning of my name. Yet when I learned that the past participle of the verb “renaître” was “rené,” I wondered about the proper spelling of my name. Upon doing a little research, I found that properly spelled in French, my name should have an accent too, but wondered about the last “e.” About this time I learned that for the feminine form, an extra “e” was usually added to the past participle of a verb. At this time I decided that the proper spelling of my name should be “R-e-n-é-e,” and so I started spelling my name with accent and keeping the second “e” on the end. I also started signing my documents as such. I even thought about having the documents drawn up to make it “legal.”
Because I was spelling my name with a letter that isn’t English, I quickly learned that typing my name was problematic. To remedy this, I added the accent by hand after I was finished typing. Then when I was studying French in college I learned the secret codes for accent marks and my problem was solved. These days I have an “international” keyboard and have a key that is especially reserved for my accent.
However, the spelling was not the only thing about my name that has caused me trouble. During my junior year of college, I had the opportunity to go to France for a semester. Among the hundreds of things that I was looking forward to, I was excited by the idea of going somewhere where the people would finally understand my name and the funny accent that I had been adding to it for six years.
On registration day for my grammar class, when asked my name, I proudly announced it was Renée using my best French pronunciation. The lady with the cat frame glasses at the registration desk seemed to look down her beaky nose at me and made a comment to the effect that I had a man’s name! Of course, I knew that René could be a unisex name; the father of a friend of mine’s name was Rene. But it wasn’t until I went to France and made some French acquaintances that I became aware that the French seldom used Renée as a woman’s name. I was saddened: It seemed to me no one but me appreciated what I perceived to be the beauty of my name.
From then on, I didn’t make such a fuss of my name. Then nearly ten years later, I started working with a man who had been born in France, had a Ph.D. in French semiotics, and spoke fluent French. I couldn’t help sharing the story of everything I had learned about my name with him. He didn’t scoff or laugh. On the contrary, he thought I had a beautiful name and told me he didn’t blame me for thinking so too!
