When my parents named me Mariela I don’t think they ever thought it could be difficult for anyone to pronounce it. Being a rather popular name among women from my generation in my country, I actually never encountered any problem with it until I moved abroad. Interesting enough, I’ve had issues with both Spanish-speakers and non-Spanish-speakers.
Based on my experience, for example, it seems Mariela is not a common name in Mexico so when I lived there they would call me Marielena, Marisela, Marcela, Mirela, etc…anything except Mariela, which always left me wondering how such a simple sounding, 3-syllable word could transform into a totally different one as often as it did. To this day, that’s still a mystery to me.
Here in the US, especially in the South, people just tend to assume my name is Maria and that’s what they’ll call me even if they see my name written…which, I have to admit, does make me upset. Whenever that happens, I’ll go “wait, I think you missed a couple of letters there!” My guess is people are just lazy and don’t want to bother trying.
The above being said, I also have to mention that fortunately I do run into people who make the best effort to pronounce my name correctly and that is a gesture that I truly appreciate. Hey, I may end up being called Marila or something similar but at least they are trying so they get extra points just for that!
I am still torn between saying my name the way it is pronounced in Spanish, rolling the “r”, just using the American version of it (Mary Ella) or spelling it out. So every time I am asked my name I do some sort of profiling and decide on the spot whereas I should go for option A, option B or option C, depending on who asked. Yes, call me biased because I am! This tactic has led me to some surprises though (when I least expected it a person could pronounce it correctly), but I do pick the right approach almost always.
And of course, there’s always a fourth option: just temporarily adopting a simple, easy name, such as Judy or Betty. This works just fine at places like Starbucks where there’s no time to give explanations. However, it is kind of risky provided I have such bad short memory: I may just forget what name I gave when ordering and I could end up drinking a venti frappuccino instead of a tall latte.
I do realize I’m not alone in this. For example, my friend Shannon tells me they mix her name up with Sharon all the time…she also feels aggravated when that happens. I guess we both feel our names are such a big part of our identity that we refuse to be called by the wrong name. Mmmm, on second thought though, perhaps we should relax a bit and let people decide what name suits us…that may result in an interesting experiment!