It’s small wonder that I tend towards the irascible, having the name that I do. Because, quite frankly, it’s a fucking pain in the ass.
Let’s start with the first (Christian) name. Kim. Easy to spell, easy to say, mostly it’s pronounced as written. (There’s the occasional “Kym”, but that’s — I think — an affectation, like Tyffynny instead of Tiffany.) My parents named me thus because they wanted a single, easy-to-pronounce, easy-to-spell appellation and in that, they were largely successful. However:
“But that’s a girl’s name!”
This is the first of the many crosses I have had to bear, and my personal history is replete with stories of me taking a swing at people — okay, boys — who taunted me thus.
In fact, “Kim” is one of those gender-free names, in that it’s not a name, but a title. In most versions of the early Anglo-Saxon language, “kim” means “chief” or “chieftain”, and as those ancient Anglo-Saxons didn’t care whether their ruler was male or female, the title bears no gender. (Boudicca, she of the anti-Roman rebellion, was actually “Kim Boudicca” because the tribes of those days had no monarchy: chiefs were elected leaders, not always hereditary ones. (Mostly, but let’s try to avoid wandering down that branch line.)
And that’s just my first name. (Also, in traditional English parlance, it’s my Christian name, but gawd forbid Americans are so intolerant as to use that when there are Muslims etc. in the populace who might take offense. In addition, there’s no established church, so despite the “Under God” and “So help me God”, anything Christian is doubleplusungood, government-wise.)
Also, because my parents saw no need to give me one, I have no middle name, which causes endless issues with U.S. officialdom. When I fill in the foul ATF 4473 form, for example, I have to put the idiotic “NMN” (no middle name) acronym, because to leave it blank or put in a “–” might screw things up totally.
And on we go.
My surname (“last” name in Murkin) is Du Toit. So my full name is “Kim du Toit”, because if the name is preceded by a name or “Mr.”, the “d” is not capitalized. But that’s only the beginning, because now we get to the Space Issue.
You see, there’s a space between the “du” and “Toit”. (However, in modern-day France, it’s mostly spelled “Dutoit”; go figure.) But there has to be a space, as you will see.
An aside: “toit” in French means “roof”, so my name literally means “of the roof” — perhaps because back in the mists of time, there was a Pierre who was a roofer, and so the family name might have become “Pierre of the Roof” (e.g. the Carter, Smith, Mason or Wainwright surnames). However, as far as I can make out, the family originated in the south of France near the Pyrenees mountains, so “toit” could also mean “high place”, and the “de/du” has an alternative meaning of “from”.
The family motto, by the way, is “Dios y El Rey”, a Spanish term meaning “God and the King”, making the Pyrenees origin still more plausible.
Back to the pesky last name. All my South African documents (birth certificate, passport, I.D. etc. are spelled “du [space] Toit” or if capitalized “DU [space] TOIT” (see the family crest). So when I came Over Here in the Great Wetback Episode of ’86, that’s how I continued to spell my name.
Which is where the problems began.
You see, a great number of databases don’t like a space appearing in a name field — and by “don’t like” I mean they fall over or reject the spelling. Worse still, it depends on which entity’s database we’re talking about. The DMVs of Illinois, New Jersey and Texas will not accept the space — so my name always becomes DUTOIT on my driver’s license, except in Illinois where it’s DU_TOIT (!) — but the State Department has no problem with the space, probably because they have to deal with all sorts of strange names, so in my naturalization certificate and passport it’s spelled correctly: DU [space] TOIT. Ditto the IRS and SocSec, thank gawd.
Another aside: some time ago I had occasion to visit the friendly folks at the local Social Security office (no kidding, they are totally unlike other government apparatchiks) and just for the hell of it, I asked to see my personal details. Imagine mu surprise when the SocSec screen showed my birthplace as “Johannesburg, Saudi Arabia“. I shared a merry laugh with the person on the other side of the counter, and luckily (for no reason I can explain) happened to have my passport with me, which showed my birthplace as Johannesburg, South Africa. The guy laughed, and said, “So which one is it?” whereupon I offered him $10,000 if he could find in any atlas a town named Johannesburg in Saudi Arabia. Then I asked to see the data input screen, and lo! “South Africa” appeared just below “Saudi Arabia” in the “check appropriate box” section. He changed it on the spot.
Now let’s talk about other entities, e.g. banks. You guessed it: on a couple of bank cards, the space is elided, and on others, the space appears without any issue. The problem comes, however, when I’m buying something online and have to enter my name As It Appears On The Card — because woe betide me should I add the space where there is none, or leave out the space when I shouldn’t. So every online purchase necessitates me asking (usually out loud, with only a few Bad Words) “Now which [insert Bad Word here] card am I using now?”
Finally, there’s the matter of its pronunciation. Oh FFS. In South Africa, it’s pronounced “doo toy” because over time it’s become an Afrikaans name, and the Dutchies never found a French name they couldn’t fuck up. Seriously: “François” (“frahns swah”) becomes “”Franche Wah” and “Labuschagne” (pronounced like champagne) becomes the awful “Laboo-Skachni” — the -ch pronounced like the Scottish “loch”.
When I came over to the U.S. I decided to revert back to the (correct) French pronunciation because nobody could spell it anyway, and I happened to prefer the French manner because it sounds kinda classy and it’s all about branding, folks. Also, the chicks thought it was super-sexy, and that’s all that counts, really.
On the day I was sworn in as a proud U.S. citizen, the clerk at the federal court asked me, before printing out my certificate, whether I wanted to change my last name. Clearly, this would be popular with someone named, oh, “Krmczyl” or “Psmith” — or “du Toit”/”Dutoit”, for that matter. Had I known this was possible ahead of time, I might have considered it quite seriously: Dutton? Dawson? but that would have created problems should I ever have to get access to any South African documents (as I did, much later). For continuity’s sake, therefore I said, “No, let me keep it just the way it is.”
So here we are.
And people wonder why I swear so much and am perpetually irritable.
Update: a couple of folks have asked for a phonetic pronunciation of “Du Toit”.
Doo Twah (with a short “ah”)
Something like 1/3 of all Koreans have the surname “Kim” which I think I read means “Gold” in the context of a name. It was the family name of a royal dynastic family for several hundred years and when the commoners started taking surnames, well why wouldn’t they use the name of the royals? Status by association, right?
And you said Tiffany? CGP Grey has a fun video about that name 😉 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LMr5XTgeyI
For my own surname, it’s “Camp” but in tracing the family history back it was originally “de Kampo” and just meant “from Kampo” (a region in north-central France), and it evolved through time to de Kamp to Kamp to Camp.
Because the Kampo region of the 900’s was known as rich farmland, there’s apparently some thought that “Kampo” had the meaning of “farmer’s field” or just “field” and is roughly the equivalent of the current French surname “Picard.”
An alternate explanation of the name, however, is that an ancestor apparently was part of the Norman Invasion and won the surname due to feats of valor during that campaign, and “campa” was the Old English word meaning “warrior” so he chose that name to try to integrate to the new place he was settling. We have the family history back that far due to him being elevated to the petty nobility when he won the surname, so it kinda sounds plausible, though the original “from Kampo in Normandy” seems more likely overall to me.
It’s from the Latin word “campus”, meaning plain (the geographical term).
Surname de Beer became a source of much family mirth when we moved to the US from South Africa to settle in Minnesota.
Whenever it had to be written and presented before starting a conversation, the familiarity of the word “beer” for some reason suddenly became cloaked in obscurity. Upon seeing it, there would usually be a long puzzled pause, followed by a plaintive “ mister deeburr?” We all learned to be ready with a well rehearsed “it’s duh beer, like that stuff you drink”. This would inevitably result in one of those “you are weird” looks.
Conversationally, it would go one of two ways. Either “Oh; anything to do with diamonds?” or “how do you spell that?” See above, but with the opportunity to forestall the “deeburr” with the “what you drink”.
To make matters worse, my son’s first name is Jan as in yahn. Anyone looking for my son in a crowd (say at school) working from the written version, would call for “Jan Deeburr”. Hilariously, this often resulted in a puzzled “but you aren’t a girl”. That was then – today might be more like “oh, so you’re trans?”
Just last week I complimented a woman for pronouncing my last name correctly, a feat that is only accomplished 1 in 100 times. Most people get it wrong, and I have never understood why.
While my last name has 10 letters, it breaks down (as we all were supposedly taught in 2nd grade) into 3 syllables – 2 that are 3 letters and the last one is 4 letters.
All 3 syllables are easily pronounced and the last one is a very common German-Austrian name in it’s own right. (think of an ancient classical music composer who’s last name is 4 letters and starts with a B)
But yet there they are, 99 times out of 100, mangling it in ways only pure idiots can.
Many times I have wished my last name was Smith.
Heh! Thank you for that little romp through family naming habits and history. Your folks were very conservative and match my grandfather in his outlook.
Grandad named two sons, just a christian name and surname which was apparently common in the Totness area of England. This caused no end of paperwork issues as the Spanish based bureaucracy (where grandad had emigrated to) expects to see a christian name, middle name (possibly second middle name), surname and maternal name on every freaking document (and there are LOTS of documents). I do believe that in reaction to not having a middle name (mother also was single named), my parents went full bore and assigned two middle names.
Time passes and the heir emigrates to the U.S. – the navy says – you can’t have two middle names, PICK ONE, so now reduced from original to just one middle name I remain, your friend and a proud LEGAL citizen with such too.
BTW – is the old address for “send Kim stuff” still valid? Just in case yannow.
Always:
6009 W Parker Rd
Ste 149-141
Plano TX 75093
Re: your first name. We’re all aware of your “distaste” for sci-fi, but you’d probably take a liking to Jayne Cobb, the mercenary played by Adam Baldwin (“the good Baldwin”) on the tragically short-lived “Firefly”. He has a love of firearms, a disdain for authority, and he got nearly homicidal when a shipmate pointed out that “Jayne is a girl’s name.” (As a side note, the show also featured a young and nubile Christina Hendricks in one of her earliest roles, and as nekkid as US network TV would allow.)
Re: your last name. Just be glad that we ‘Muricans don’t pronounce it like “Detroit”.
I get that, too. In fact, in nearly forty years Over Here, only ONE person has got it right first time — a Black guy checking me in at the Omni Hotel in St. Louis.
I feel your pain there. Last name is three words, first two are lower case (they are technically titles). Maybe one out 100 gets it right pronunciation wise (it is actually very phonetic for its English version, the German version is actually also easy but not worth the effort to get people to say it).
Absolutely no one spells it right. Many computers will not accept it. It is frustrating, but It is what it is.
I have had no problem with it, but then again I speak German and even so, take care to pronounce people’s names properly.
My family lacks creativity and originality when naming males. I am the fourth. It screws people up that I use my middle name like my father did. Call me almost anything except late for dinner
Re: Boudicca. Had she lived 4 centuries later, she would’ve been know to the immigrating/invading Anglo-Saxon tribes as ‘cyne’ or ‘kyne’ (later became “kim”, as well as queen and king), but seeing as she was a Briton of the Iceni tribe, it would’ve been something similar to the Welsh word ‘brenhines’.
I will now report for my richly deserved flogging.
Nah… educated corrections such as yours are ALWAYS welcome here.
I feel your pain, Kim. My last name has an apostrophe, and the letters on either side are supposed to be capitalized. Many computer systems don’t like the apostrophe. Some put a space there and treat the first letter as if it were a middle initial. Others just drop the apostrophe and put the second letter in lower case. Finding me in computer systems is always an adventure, which I don’t help by being called and known by my middle name, so as not to be confused with my father, or grandfather.
Both being capitalized is quite unusual. Olivia d’Abo, for example, has the apostrophe but the “d” is (correctly) not capitalized. When not preceded by a name, however, the “d” would be capitalized, e.g. the Dumas character D’Artagnan.
I remember years ago asking you about the pronunciation of your surname and one of the choices I sent you was “doo twah” I believe the other was “doo toyt”
Glad to see my initial guess was correct.
I believe I related this at the time it happened, but a few years ago, I went in for a medical procedure. The doctor was originally from South Africa. Apparently, I became very talkative after I was given the anesthetic and mentioned your blog. During our follow up conversation the next day, he told me, “By the way, in South Africa we pronounce it ‘doo toy.’”
Probably a Dutchie.
I have a similar, perhaps not as irritating, cross to bear. My name is Brian. That’s what I’ve been called since birth and what I’ve always gone by. My full legal name is Donald Brian Kotowski. Too many official forms – both govt & private sector – do not permit the spelling of one’s “middle” name. There is only a space for the middle initial. I generally fill them out as permitted, and educate people after the fact re: how they should address me.
On one occasion I was fingerprinted for a gig, and just wrote in Brian Kotowski. I was later accused of trying to create a false identity. Ye gods.
Meanwhile, this discussion reminds me of one of my all-time favorite movie lines, which I’ll get to momentarily.
My slant eyed half is Japanese, and a lot of Japanese names mean something or other. My mom’s name for example, Haru, means springtime. As a kid, it was occasionally irritating to be grilled on whose names meant what.
Which brings me to Pulp Fiction. Bruce Willis has fled the scene of the prizefight he was paid to throw but didn’t. He jumps into a cab to make his getaway; he and the Spanish cabbie introduce themselves. He tells her his name is Butch.
“Butch – what does that mean?”
“I’m American, baby. Our names don’t mean shit.”