These facts seem worth stating given the number of repeated questions I’ve received throughout my life about this simple, three-letter name. Recently I went to a massage appointment with a therapist I’d never met. I was seated very near her when she called my name in the reception area, yet she looked past me, around me, anywhere but at me. This is a familiar experience, but usually it's because someone is expecting to see a man. However, after I raised my hand two feet away from the therapist and said, “I’m Lee,” she was genuinely surprised that I did not appear Chinese. After we walked back to the tiny massage room, she asked briefly what my trouble areas were but then, with more focus, she wanted to know whether I was Chinese. I looked at her, with my very Caucasian face inches from hers, and told her no, I was not. I thought that should resolve the issue.
Minutes later, after I was unclothed, lying face-down and ready to relax in peace, she told me she saw my name on the chart and expected to see a “Chinese lady." This I already knew. But in an effort to discourage further conversation, I just laughed politely and said “Oh.” Then, because she must have been having a very hard time reconciling my name with my non-Chinese ethnicity, she said in her heavy Eastern European accent, “A lot of Chinese name Lee.” I said, “Well, it may be a common last name,” hoping to just put the matter to rest. As she continued to sloppily beat the muscles along my back with a technique I’d never before experienced, she said, baffled, “Oh, last name?” I said firmly, “Yeah,” hardly an expert in the subject but wanting to end to the chit-chat.
During the rest of the massage, which was anything but relaxing or therapeutic, I thought about the history of encounters I’d had like this, people having very assured expectations about the kind of person I would, or should, be based on these three letters. I’d had my own challenges accepting my name at an early age, once I realized the particular spelling of my name was more commonly the “masculine” spelling rather than the feminine.
In first grade, on the first day of school I recall my teacher separating the boys and girls into two groups in the classroom before she called roll. (Why, I have no clue.) When she got to my name, she looked over to the group of boys. I was mortified. It was the first of many corrections I would make throughout the years about my gender, based on the spelling of my name. It’s possible, too, that my bowl-cut hair did little to lend femininity to my person. But I should not have needed to be concerned with such things, and someone had made me suddenly acutely aware that there could be any least bit of confusion about my gender, and it troubled me, right or wrong.
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| You do you, Lee. |
In middle school, I’d become so bothered by the assumptions people might be making that I decided to change the spelling from L-E-E to L-E-I-G-H—the more common spelling for female Lees. To further emphasize the femaleness of my name, I added a flower as the dot above the “I.” Of course, I only changed the spelling on my school papers and in notes to friends, and because it did not match the spelling on record at my school, my act of defiance only caused confusion among my teachers, which at least one of them pointed out to me. Ever the obedient student, I went back to plain old L-E-E.
Occasionally throughout my grade school years, a new teacher would notice my middle name was Anne and ask if I preferred to go by Lee Anne (certainly that must be my preference; I was a girl). I liked the idea of that so I said yes, that was my preference. But neither they nor I were consistent about it, and I never tried to enforce it with friends or family, so the new name never stuck.
I eventually grew to love my name, in its masculine, modest three letters. It was unique among all the people I’d ever known (especially for a girl). It’s worth noting that, in my more than three decades of living, I’ve met one male Lee, that I can recall, and at least one female Lee. So the easy assumption toward male Lee is a little baffling.
Today, when I receive email salutations that begin with “Mr.,” as I frequently do, sometimes I correct the sender and sometimes I don’t. If I will meet the individual in person, I usually note that, FYI, I’m a woman. Or in a more formal context I sign my name in the reply email with “(Ms.)” before my name, which seems the gentlest way to make a correction. Nevertheless, people always seem very embarrassed about the error, and I just tell them not to worry; it happens all the time.
I try to make things easy for people who take my name down from hearing it, for example, the baristas and food service staff at shops that ask for my name to go with my order. I always say, “Lee, L-E-E,” just to eliminate the guesswork. (Of course, at most of these places, the staff person has just taken my credit card payment, and I want to point out that they could eliminate the need to ask for my name by just looking at the card, but I refrain.) During one such instance, a friend was with me and began laughing after I spelled my name. Thinking there was nothing amusing about this courtesy I was extending, I asked what was funny. He said that it’s not hard to spell. I KNOW, RIGHT? And yet it was. At least, correctly. For this woman. Prior to this practice, in my less instructive days, the spelling of my name proved difficult for said staff. Point in case:
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| I mean, of all the options. |
Something else people have asked me is whether Lee was my whole first name. I kind of get this. It’s a common middle name. It’s short. It begs for a second syllable. In preschool, kids rectified this deficit on their own, by calling me names like Lee Pee, Lee Jeans, Lee Press-on-Nails. Even though only the first one came close to being a creatively damaging nickname (the others were just actual brand names of products used mostly by our mothers), they all were said with cruel intention, with mockery, and so they all stung.
At home, however, Lee Bird was the nickname of choice, and it was said with endearment, so I liked it. I still do. And I love birds, in an objectifying kind of way, because they make me think of this family-given nickname. (Also, symbolism, etc.)
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| Mid-30s, still rocking the "Bird." |
But back to middle names. I mentioned that Lee is a common middle name. In fact, my first name is my twin sister's middle name. She has a regular, whole, two-syllable first name. It means grace—an admirable trait to possess. In the same vein as beauty, elegance. My name means meadow, or clearing. An area of land cleared from woods. It's literally a lack of woods. A lack of something. Of course, I know for certain my parents didn't think too deeply about our names and their meanings, so I don't take this glaring difference personally. But, if one were to psychoanalyze the situation, one might conclude that a certain twin's inferiority complex, supposing she had one, is rooted in her name. (Of course, nobody is doing that!)
But what, in general, is with the questioning, the doubting, of a person’s name—especially when they tell you and they show you it’s their name? I must admit now that I’m not immune to such inquisitiveness. I have a cousin named Jenny and, being ever the correcting person I am, even as a child, I told her once that her full name had to be Jennifer; she said it wasn't, it was Jenny. She was older, so I knew she wouldn't lie. I had to accept this uncomfortable fact that challenged my assumption.
More recently, I encountered a man at the grocery store whom I’d just seen at the gym a while earlier, so we recognized each other and made introductions and I told him my name and he told me his: Flex. I paused, having the desire to both laugh and ask what his real name was but somehow found the composure to hold both in, and he, cognizant of my pause, said, “Like the muscle,” and flexed his biceps to make sure I understood. At a loss for appropriate words, I said, with too much enthusiasm, “I love it, it’s great!” A name is whatever you say it is, right?
***
As I was leaving the coffee shop where I was composing this post, the guy who'd taken my order earlier—a new person I'd not seen before, he said, "Bye, Lee, have a good afternoon." He'd remembered my name.
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