Apparently, I have the most difficult name in all of Italy. Emily.
No matter where I go, or who I speak with, the first time I tell someone my name I get an arrangement of confused looks, and then asked to repeat it.
Case-in-point, the poor telemarketer who called me yesterday. Now, I never pick up numbers I don't know, but this particular case I was expecting a call and assumed this was it. Wrong. The poor soul didn't know what to do when he asked me my name. Me: Emily. Telemarketer: What? Me (again): Emily (I even attempted an Italian accent, but still no dice). This went on for about 3 minutes till I then proceeded to say "Emily like Emilia" (the region that we live in), and then from that moment on my name was Emilia, no longer Emily.
This is the story of my name here... too many vocali, vowels, together I guess (and that's if we're counting that "y" as a vowel). Long gone are the days where I can find cheesy tourist key chains, mugs, state license plates or whatever tourist trinket may have my common American name.
The flip-side, I now find all those tourist trinkets with Giancarlo written on it. I always joked in America that he never got the pleasure of having a key chain from California with Giancarlo written on it, but now he's one-upped me. He gets a key chain from everywhere in Italy with Giancarlo written on.
4 comments:
When I was living there, no-one could pronounce my name (Ellie), I let my local pizzeria call me Abby for six months!
haha yes! I will forever be Emilia to the Bolognese.
Oi, that stinks. It's kinda funny that you have a different name in Italy though. Cool blog.
Don't worry we all suffer with this. My name is Diane but I am called Deeeeeaaaannna. My son Tristan is called Tristano. What can we do, not a lot just go with the flow. By the way I do enjoy your blog, keep it up.
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