Thursday, December 23, 2010

Pseudo name

I recollect those initial days of my first job when I was supporting a leading Internet Service Provider in the United States. I had to choose a pseudo name as the Americans find it difficult to pronounce the typical Indian names. I wanted to choose a name that begins with "I" so that it would create a strong association with me. I had a liking for the name "Irene" and I think it was because of my then favorite '1996 Miss World Irene Skliva'. When I first heard her name, it caught my attention and I had my own "traits" assigned to it. Confidence, attitude and elegance were those. I must say I had a tough time educating people about the pronunciation of this name as well. I did not want to be addressed as 'Irin' or 'Ileen' and one has to roll their 'R's so well so that it sounds like "Ireene" and on an average I had to correct 7/10 customers on the right pronunciation. They wouldnt have had a tough time calling my actual name indeed.

I remember those funny days when my friends had composed a background music that copied the then famous kollywood collections whenever I started the opening script introducing me as "Irene".

Me: Thank you for choose XYZ Internet Services.
My name is Ireene...(background chorus: repeats it with tan tan tan tan....with their invisible musical       instruments)



'I*****' would'nt have been that tough but 'Irene' definitely made an impact!

2 comments:

Ch4 said...

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

IJ said...

Mars, I feel that your name defines your personality and to an extent it makes a little impact on how well its welcomed by the people. I definitely like my original name but when I had an option to choose another I felt this name outsmarted the other usual ones(according to me). I would take the choice of colors as another example.