What's in a name?

My name is fairly simple to pronounce. June Pen: that's two syllables, and both parts of my name are commonly used words in the English language. In the department of Easy Names, I score big-time.
But then you add in my middle name: Karnia. To my family and me, that's not so bad. To people I've met in the past, suddenly I'm not such an easy name to pronounce. All because I have a middle name that's part of a whole different language! Oh no! The horror!
Okay, now I'm just mocking people. But I have little stories about each part of my name, and I wanted to share with readers because I think they say something about how we go about treating things that we're unfamiliar with. I can't quite put exact words to it, but I'll do my best.

Let's start with June. Simple enough, right? It's the name of a month, people say it and spell it all the time. No problems there, right? WRONG.
See, when people are reading off my name, without a face to attach it to yet - such as while taking attendance in classes - they say my name just fine. But on quite a few occasions, I've told people in person that my name is June, and I get some variation of this:
"How do you spell that?" they ask tentatively. "Joon? Or is it spelled with a 'Ch'?"
"It's June. J-u-n-e, like the month?"
And then the light returns to their eyes. "Ohh," they say with relief. "Like the month."
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I've always thought this implies that they saw my non-whiteness and thought that I probably didn't have an "American" (read: white) name that was as simple as June. I guess I should appreciate the consideration that my name may be spelled a different way, but honestly I'm not too sure how I feel about that.

Once, a teacher was taking attendance and there were pictures of each student next to our names on the list. She came to my name and said, "Is it... Joon-uh? Joonie? Jun-eh?"
"June. Like the month," I replied, baffled.
Again, that spark of relief in her eyes that I've seen many times in others. Is it some sort of relief that my name isn't another foreign name to deal with? Is it relief that she doesn't have to make some sort of note in the margins of her attendance sheet on how to say it right? Should I be slightly offended by this? Does it have something to do with the association between my non-whiteness and my having a name that has its origins in Western civilization? I certainly don't have the answer to these questions.

Also as a sidenote: if you share a name with a month you will probably relate to this, but let me tell you that my entire life I've been the victim of many variations of the question "if your name is June, were you born in June?" and usually the asker will think it's the funniest/coolest thing when I say yes. Or people will ask "So if you were born in December, would your name be December?" to which I can't really give an answer. My dad liked the name June because he said it's a sunshine-y and overall great month because it's the month in which I was born, so...maybe?
If you've asked me one or both of these questions, I'm sorry if I seemed completely unamused; it's just that I've had this happen to me with almost every single person I've ever interacted with, so it gets a little very old. I don't blame you, though. I'm used to it by now, but I'm sure it was funny to me many (many many many) moons ago.


Moving on to my middle name: Karnia. This is a Khmer word meaning something like "lady" or "miss." It is kind of like a title one would use to refer to a young woman. The pronunciation is something like "kan-ee-ya" with an "a" like the one in "apple." The long "e" sound is quick and not stressed. Typically I just say the Americanized version of the name to save time and avoid spelling confusion, but that's purely my choice.
In elementary school I had two occurrences which have stayed with me my whole life regarding my middle name. One was where I told a small group of my classmates that simply and roughly translated, Karnia means girl. Naturally, my 7-year-old friends ran around the entire playground yelling "JUNE GIRL PEN!" and laughing. This went on for a week before it stopped being fun to them. I'm still haunted by the sound of girls giggling menacingly as they poked fun of my name.

Another time I remember was when I was telling my friends in fourth grade my middle name and one of them said "June CORN-ia Pen" and then proceeded to laugh as he taunted me with this new rendition of my name. "Are you a CORNY person, June CORN-ia Pen?"
I'm not sure how long that went on for, but I do remember being very exasperated!

Finally, we have Pen. I don't have many stories about it, only that a couple times people have told me I was spelling my last name wrong, that it should be "Penn." What they fail to realize is that it's not a name that has its origins in English. Technically, my last name is pronounced "Pai-en" (very smoothly, in one single syllable). It's not meant to be Penn as in William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania, so no, I'm not spelling my name wrong!

What kind of blog post would this be if it didn't have a takeaway? Here's one final tidbit for you: my dad goes by Pen because he had so much trouble with people pronouncing his first name (Samnang) and got so sick of them saying it revoltingly wrong that he finally gave up and chose to go by simply Pen. It's even embroidered on his work uniform!
Often when we come across "ethnic" or "foreign-sounding" names we freak out and offer a shortcut or nickname or simply refuse to learn how to say it right. Some people, commonly immigrants, tell us to call them something else, and that's fine. But if someone chooses to go by their given name, it's very important to learn how to say it properly, no matter how difficult you think it is. It's the respectful thing to do.

My name is June Karnia Pen. People have asked me if I would want to choose a different name for myself, and I say no. I like my name; my parents chose a good one and I've grown to embrace it.
Do you have any funny or frustrating stories about your name? Comment below, I want to hear about it!

~ JP

Hark! the very first blog post!

Since I was very young, I have loved to write. Maybe it resulted from being a lonesome only child, or maybe it was because I read a lot of books and thus had way too wild of an imagination to keep all my ideas inside my head. So I put them on paper. I remember one of my first stories being about a trio of cat friends exploring a mysterious cave on the outskirts of town. I was about 8 and was hopelessly obsessed with the Warriors book series (if you haven't heard of it, it's an EPIC children's series about feral cats who have a whole code of conduct and clans and structured lifestyles to ensure their survival. I think the authors are still churning out books as I type this, actually). I loved to write adventure stories which usually starred myself and my friends. In fifth grade, my teacher encouraged us all to keep "remembrance books" and gave us all a certain amount of time every day to freewrite. He fostered my love for writing like no one else had, and was always happy to read my bizarre stories.

When I entered middle school, I began to write poetry as well. One of my teachers taught an entire unit on poetry and we all compiled books full of poems written in various styles. One of my poems touched her so much she made me read it to the class, and that was when I thought, "hey, I'm a decent writer!" So ever since then, the habit I have never seemed to kick (not that I would want to) has been writing. Just writing. Writing stories, writing poetry, writing in a journal (and now writing a blog!).

But at some point after my middle school days, I quit sharing my work with people. I was/am often crippled by social anxiety, and the fear of being ridiculed or judged for my writing terrified me. I couldn't let the one constant passion I had be tarnished by the potential judgment of others, especially when the things I write tend to be very raw and based on emotions I personally experience. I kept writing, but I never, ever shared it with anybody. Sometimes that's a great thing and it's really liberating because you can feel free to write whatever you want without the fear of it being rejected or mocked by someone else.

With that said, I'll definitely continue to write for solely myself. However, I think the time has come for me to branch out too. I've always prided myself on two things: my independence and my willingness to try new things in an effort to improve myself as a person. I realized there are a lot of things I want to say, and I think I deserve to make my voice heard (in writing, that is). One of my mentors suggested I start a blog. I turned that idea over in my head a few times and thought it'd be a great idea. And what better time to start a blog? I'm preparing to study abroad next month in Australia, so it'll be nice for people to keep up with my adventures. Not to mention social tensions are high, currently, no matter what your beliefs are. We need more educated voices out there. By no means am I saying I'm an expert in social justice or history or really any other topic out there right now, but I am an expert when it comes to my personal experiences and observations.

So here we are! I started a blog. I'm admittedly a little intimidated because I'm aware that while there are people who will appreciate my writing, I know there will be someone out there who dislikes it or finds it boring and unnecessary. One lesson I've learned, however, is that it's okay. You don't need external validation for your experiences, feelings, or actions to be legitimate and important. All that matters is that you do what you want to do.

I look forward to the times ahead on this blog, and I hope you do too. There's hardly a better feeling than knowing another human being spent their valuable time reading something I wrote. So: welcome, read my About Me, check back every week, and happy reading!

~ June