What's in a Name?

When I was a young girl of just 5 years old, entering a whole new life of public schooling, I was sorely disappointed to learn that despite how special I may have felt leaving my house, in my brand new blue skirt, complimented by adorable blue suspenders, I was merely just another 'Nicole' in a sea of adorably dressed 5-year-old 'Nicoles' placed in Ms. Wachimici's class for morning kindergarten that year. And out of our Nicole posse, 3 of us were 'Nicole B.' My name every weekday from 8:00am - 12:30pm, therefore went from Nicole, to Nicole B. to Nicole Ba.

I can't say that it was at this 5-year-old moment that I decided to change my name, but just 3 years later, when my family decided to move to a new city, I decided to push Nicole aside and use my unique, rolls-off-your-tongue middle name; Arielle. At the time of my decision, my biggest concern with name changing was the similarity between the sounds of Arielle (long 'A' sound, 'E' in the middle and 'Elle' at the end, sounding more like the three letters R-E-L) and Oreo cookie. Despite my desire to be as unique as possible, childhood name teasing was high on my list of angst as well. Fortunately, the 'Oreo' vs. 'REL' similarity only occurred to a few, and so never caught on as a source of childhood torment.

However, I could have never foreseen the Little Red-Headed Mermaid flipping her way to ruin my childhood; and certainly couldn't have predicted her everlasting effect of the mispronunciation of my name for decades. Even now most people choose to hear me say, Ariel (Air-E-ul) when I introduce myself. And then I have to awkwardly, even snobbishly correct the mispronunciation, 'No, Arielle, more like the tree letters, R-E-L.' And most people, I imagine, envisioning that beautiful red-headed mermaid princess, nod yes, yes yes, and say 'I see, Air-E-ul'.

After we moved, when I was in forth grade, there was a great rumor about the new girl, 'that she loved Disney movies so much, she'd changed her first name in honor of the mermaid, and her last (Ballou), to represent the Jungle bear.' Years later, I had a friend tell me that my names were more like a Disney catastrophe, a Mer-bear, all flippers and scales on the bottom, and all gilled bear on the upper half. Or perhaps a Bear-maid, if you will.

These days when I reveal my name change, friends always insist that I seem more like an 'Arielle' anyway. As if to suggest the common 'Nicole' is inferior in some way to the more unique and more often mispronounced 'Arielle.' And I have to consider, if I am more of an 'Arielle' than a 'Nicole' more unique in character in some way than all those other Nicole B.s from my kindergarten posse, then need I have changed my name anyway? Could I have not been just as unique in character had I gone by Nicole Ba all my life?