Look! ?Two posts in one day.
Names are a funny thing right? ?Oh wait, I’ve written about the boy’s name before. ?Yes, he has a strange name. ?Yes, it is Russian. ?No, we couldn’t think of anything better.
With the start of school brings new people who have never seen or heard the name Oleg. ?My poor child. ?We go through this every year. ?I tell him it is ok to correct people when they say his name wrong. ?He does on occasion. ?Most of the time he tells me later that he just doesn’t like that person. ?When I ask why his reply is, “because they called me Oh-leg.”
Now when the boy meets a new person and they ask what his name is he politely tells them “Oleg.” ?People often say, “Alec?” ?To which my son says, “Oleg, O-L-E-G, Oleg” then rolls his eyes.
Poor kid. ?That’s going to cost me more in therapy too.
Try to make him put extra stress on E in his name. For some reason American pronunciation of his name has a tendency to put a stress on O, which is wrong, and make his beautiful name sounds funny. I have a female version of the same name – Olga, in Russian it has an extra letter the soft sign after L. There is no such sound in English language, so I gave up after a while and often use the American version of my name myself. You can only correct people so many times… It is tiring. Well, and I am 59 years old, so I had a lot of time to settle this problem.
Olga
Oleg makes me smile…
We get the same thing with both Vika and Eamon. People want to call Vika “Vikkah” instead of the Russian pronunciation of “Veekah.” Eamon, well he’s been called EEE-mon, Amos, and Aidan. And we actually chose his name! Poor kid.
At least none of our children are saddled with a common name like “Jennifer.” I’m fairly certain there will never be 5 Olegs, Vikas or Eamons in any one classroom (like I had growing up – there are only so many variations of the name “Jennifer” a teacher can do to keep things straight!).
Speaking as someone who has had to spell her name (Liese, pronounced “Lisa”)just about every day of her life, he will just have to resign himself to the task. What makes me crazy are the morons who ask, “Are you sure?” when I spell it. After 38 1/2 years, yeah, I think I’ve got it down…..Sheesh.