My Name is Not Me.

My name is not suitable to my personality in the least. It’s a gripe I’ve had since I was young. When I was younger, my family had a baby book I would look at and name my dolls after. The book said that some names provide certain connotations. Apparently Lisa describes a person who is more delicate, fragile, and sensitive. When I was very young, I didn’t really think about it. I was always quiet. When I started developing an actual personality (some time around middle school or high school), it started to bug me how delicate my name was. I’m a loud, brash, crazy person. I’m not fragile, I’m quite strong.
Aileen, my middle name, is of Gaelic origin, which I’ve always thought is super-cool. It’s such a pretty name. I’m a little confused by it, though, because I’m not of Gaelic origin, so I wonder where and why my parents came up with that as a middle name. It’s also such a pretty name, a very feminine one, and I have to say, I’m not the most feminine girl around.
My first and middle names are so odd to me. I don’t think they give people the proper first impression at all. I feel like when people see my name, they’re expecting to see a skinny blonde girl who plays soccer and bakes cookies and even quilts or something odd like that.
As to my last name, well, it’s sort of a fluke. When my great-grandfather came to America from Hungary, he decided to change his last name from Perlmutter (German for “Mother of Pearl”) to Perlmuter, cutting out the extra T in hopes of making it easier to understand, pronounce and spell. Little did he know, that one small action did exactly the opposite of what he’d hoped. To this day, people pronounce my last name as “perl-MYOO-ter”, not “PERL-mutter” as the Germans had designed it to. It’s a curse.
My name doesn’t tell me who I am. I guess, then, it tells me who I’m not.