8 January 2007

What’s In a Name?

My dear friend Tucker Smallwood wrote a book, Return to Eden. It is a published collection of his essays. The personal inscription he wrote on the copy he gave to me moved me to tears: “To Phil, it began with you in a sense. Thanks for your encouragement and friendship. Tucker Smallwood, 7/30/06”

I’m also thanked in the acknowledgments, saved for second to last. An equally moving honor, right? Well, yes, and … My last name is misspelled (the common L-I-E, rather than L-E-I mistake rearing its head). It shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s the thought that counts. And what’s in a name, anyway? Plus, as I learned from my father this past year, our name was entirely made up by his grandfather, Eric Peterson!

As my father tells it, having traveled to this country from Norway, my great-grandfather settled in a farming community near Borup, Minnesota. Apparently, he could read and write and got tired of not having his mail delivered to him. You see, there were numerous Eric Petersons in the area! So, he decided to change his name to L-E-R-N-E-S-S (only without the dashes). Apparently “Ler” was the name of the farm he had worked on in Norway or the name of the town from which he hailed, and “Ness” was the name of the cape (or some such) that the town, or farm, was on … At any rate, the county clerk who was filling out the legal name change form slipped the extra “I” in after the “E”, thereby messing with generations of Americans ritualistically indoctrinated into the belief that “I” comes before “E”. It doesn’t in my family. That’s just how we roll … Oh, and by the way, getting his mail was apparently so important to my grandfather that he didn’t simply stop at a name change. In Borup, Minnesota, some time in the 2nd half of the 19th Century, one E.P. Leirness became postmaster!

So, why get bent out of shape over the misspelling of a name that people are ALWAYS misspelling, that my great-grandfather (with a little help from a typically precise civil servant) made up? I don’t know. All I know is that seeing my name misspelled in print DID hurt and as the weeks wore on, and Tucker expected feedback from me on his book, I found I couldn’t muster the energy to read what is, in all honesty a fantastic, thrilling, thought-provoking read. The very cover of the book, and the acknowledgements page within felt mocking to the fragile one within me. So, I avoided the book for a few weeks.

Not honorable. Not something of which I’m proud. Still, L-E-I-R-N-E-S-S is my name, and I guess that name matters to me.

And that’s all right.