What’s Up With My Name?
I’ve realized that people who don’t know me may be checking out my dust jacket or website and wondering what’s up with my odd name.
My first name, Velya, is pronounced Vealia and comes from a Viennese operetta, The Merry Widow by Franz Lehar. Vilia/Vilja was the mysterious Witch of the Woods: “a hunter beheld her alone as she stood.” Of course you can imagine the hoots of laughter, and agreement, once my kids learned this. I guess my mom was on an opera kick when she was pregnant with me. Her name, Neysa, comes from a famous illustrator in the 1920s, Neysa McMein. My daughter’s name, Ehris, comes from my mom’s maiden name, Ehrismann. I’ve just learned to go by the nickname, Veal.
I love having an unusual first name but I think it’s hard on others. It usually takes people a long time to work up the courage to try pronouncing my name and they kind of don’t call me anything for a long time. If you have an unusual name, you know this. People think you don’t notice, but you do, and you understand. But, once people are comfortable with my name, they never forget it and it’s kind of cool to be able to sign things with just one name like Beyonce, Madonna, Oprah, Sting, Charo (no, not like Charo!).
Of course, as with most names, kids teased me about mine. For a brief period at East Ridge Junior High (for it was junior high then, not middle school) I heard “Velya, I wanna feel ya,” “Veal Parmigiana,” and “Veal Chop.” We have a friend named Mark Yamnicky and he loves to hypothesize about how funny it would have been if I had married Bob Vila, the guy from “This Old House” who became the Sears spokesperson. I would have been Velya Vila.
According to an online article I recently read, psychologists and sociologists have studied the unusual first name question for years and still cannot agree on the answer. “College women with uncommon first names score higher on scales of sociability and self-acceptance; they are also more likely to have a positive sense of individuality, which helps them to resist peer pressure. They can develop a positive, individual self-concept unhampered by the negative images that go along with names such as Adolf, Ethel, Myrtle, or Elmer.”
I’ve never seen my name emblazoned on a key chain or a room plaque at the mall, and I doubt Myrtle has either. But, when someone gets me something with my name on it, it’s EXTRA special because I know they probably had it custom-made. And, I can actually set up a Google Alert for myself without being bombarded with results!
Evans, Cleveland Kent. “Baby-Naming Trends” 13 June 2006. HowStuffWorks.com. 02 September 2010.
