A mispronounced name can be the origin point of a lifelong identity friction

Evidence

It occurred to me, one night while doomscrolling, that all of my doppelganger trouble could have been avoided if I had made good on my teenage threat to legally change my first name. In Montreal’s Jewish community, where I grew up, almost everyone pronounced it “Nye-oh-me,” with a flat “eye” on the first syllable that sounded whiny and dreary to my ears. No matter how many times I introduced myself as “Nay-oh-me,” it came back with the “Nyeeee-oh-me” drone. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 136

Categorization

• SEED: The name-as-instability seed is worth watching — how the confusion with Wolf’s Naomi was partly pre-inscribed in her own ambivalence about her name.