The Dislike for A Name

The name: Stephanie Alexandre. Let’s start with the first name, shall we? It is said “Stephanie” in Greek means crowned and in French, it means crowned in victory. However, as I was searching my name up in urban dictionary, I was able to find descriptions on myself: “Stephanie’s are very sexy and sophisticated women. Stephanie’s know what they want and can get it; can also mean a sophisticated bitch.” “Stephanie is very nice and caring towards everyone and she always has a smile on her face no matter what and she doesn’t know it, but she is very beautiful and smart.” I’d like to say I’m both. If you agree or disagree, I personally don’t care. That is the meaning of my name, according to the internet. Now, you would think, “Wow, that’s a nice name, right?” No, my name for me is just my title.

I was named after my grandmother—well, not exactly: my grandmother’s name is Symphonie. She is my mother’s best friend, literally. So of course, she would want to name her child after her—or close to the name—and what name is close to Symphonie? If you guessed Stephanie, go get yourself a cookie because you’re right. I should be honored to be named after my grandmother, the woman who was my mother before my mother; the one who raised me in Haiti when I was nine months to five years old, and when things got tough, raised me in Maryland, but the thing is: I’m not honored at all. I like to say that I was a squirrel in a past life, and my belief is that my grandmother ran me over. Meaning: I don’t get along with my grandma. I mean I love her…. really I do! But my grandma still manages to irk my soul whenever she is around. We can get along, but sometimes, I just can’t deal with her.

That is one reason why I dislike my first name. The second is because when you think of the name Stephanie, doesn’t a nice white girl pop up in your mind? Not a turnt up, sassy Haitian girl. Let me tell you the amount of times people have questioned my ethnicity based on my name and skin is stupefying and the amount of times someone has asked me if I’m part white or adopted is so ridiculous that I’ve lost count. I’d like to say it got better when I tanned, but I still get a couple of people who ask me that question, and I have to hold back my sigh and tell them no. Then I sit back and look at their disappointment. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not white, or the fact that they were wrong is the reason why they were disappointed though.

The last reason I don’t like my name is because no one can ever pronounce my last name correctly! My last name is Alexandre but everyone becomes dyslexic at the “re,” and they flip it: then I’m Alexander. My last name is French but in English, yes it would be Alexander. I didn’t know this until the third grade. As a young child, my teacher taught me how to spell my name Alexander, not Alexandre. So, up until my father told me, “NO, that’s not how you say it. CORRECT PEOPLE!” I was spelling my own name wrong. Can you believe that even though it was only two letters, my name was being spelled—and said— wrong? But, if I was given the option of changing my name, I wouldn’t.