Wednesday, September 21, 2011


My whole life, people have called me Cecilia. Many of them have even felt the need to sing me the song. I guess it makes sense. Compared to my *actual* name, it is much more common, so I can understand why people tend to naturally go there. Typically, I'll correct the error once, but seeing as I'm not big on repeating myself, there have been a good number of people who have continued to incorrectly address me time and time again. It is what it is, I guess.

This being my situation, I wanted to make sure that when my time came to name a child, I would not make the same mistake twice. Well, I fucked up royally. Joe and I had loved and discussed the name "Lucia" before we even got married. But there was one little problem... the pronunciation. Joe, being of Italian decent, believed the name should be pronounced "loo-chi-ya". I, being of hispanic decent, preferred "loo-see-ya". After years of not being able to compromise, we chose another girl name when I became pregnant. We loved the other girl name and it went fabulously with our last name, but for some reason we couldn't truly become attached to it. Joe, then, brought back the idea of "Lucia". After thoroughly discussing it, we decided that since we lived in a state with a HUGE spanish-speaking population, it would be best to go with "loo-see-ya". We could avoid any confusion and it sounded lovely with her middle name, which we were not budging on.

Our plan has totally backfired. No one ever thinks to pronounce it "loo-see-ya". Even my family members (who are all spanish-speakers), have a tendency to refer to her as "loo-chi-ya". Not only that, but we've gotten more "loo-sha"s (British pronunciation) than "loo-see-ya"s, and that way of saying it isn't even remotely common stateside. Look, I'm not trying to say that we made the wrong decision or that we have any regrets. I LOVE her name, I love the way we pronounce it, and I love that it suits her so perfectly*. It just makes me wonder how on earth I ended up doing to her what was done to me.

*Although if you read my other blog or follow me on twitter, you know that we exclusively call her "Cheech".

22 comments:

  1. Same here! Everyone pronounces or spells my name wrong. I thought giving my daughter the name Lena would make it easier to spell. People still struggle and in terms of pronounciation, there are three ways and it seems our way isn't the majority. Most people say Leena (we pronounce Len-a) and then there's Layna. As a Brit, Loo-sha is what I automatically pronounce.

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  2. I now this comment makes me an extreme Harry Potter nerd (I proudly accept this), but I think you probably have Harry Potter to thank for the pronunciation of "loo-sha" being brought stateside. Lucius Malfoy is pronounced "LOO-shus" in all the movies.

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  3. That's odd -- see, when I see the name, I think loo-see-ya. I'm having the same issue with my husband in picking out potential girl names...people have always botched my name (even the officiant at our *wedding* botched it, even after all the coaching!), so I want a name people can spell and say. But there will always be botchings. :( I think people overthink names sometimes, and forego the obvious in favor of a weirder attempt at pronunciation.

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  4. my across the street neighbor is loo-sha. she's crazy, but we adore her. and i call her loo-see-ya when i make william look at pics of her, which i've told you before. you + jamie have given me baby fevah.

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  5. Lucia (Lu-see-ya) is actually one of my top names (not pregnant, not trying for the record but totally have baby fever) and I'd never even considered that a Italian pronunciation could exist. Which I should have because I live in Argentina and my husband is Argentine and everything here is all about che che che... I'll have to ask the husband when he gets home from work.

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  6. I always thought it was lu-cee-ya, I had a friend in college named Lucia and she was hispanic. I guess there's also Lu-sha, which apparently is the french version!! at least they can spell it. that was my one concern. I hate ALWAYS having to spell my name!

    I love Cheech though.

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  7. i had a friend in high school who was "loo-see-ya" and now i have a client who goes by "loo-chi-ya".

    speaking as someone who has never had their name pronounced correctly, it's not that big of a deal. i approach it like you do. sometimes i correct and then i get tired of correcting.

    and, as you well know, our little E will always have the pleasure of deciding whether it's worth teaching people how to say her name. many family members still haven't gotten it right. oh well.

    but cheech is a great name. she totally rocks it.

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  8. I am German and my boyfriend is Italian, so we had to search a name which is easy to pronounce in both languages... We finally chose Otto for our little baby boy, even so that mean "eight" in Italian. We love it and it's easy to write too!
    I love Lucia, and Cheech fits her perfectly!

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  9. I thought it was lu-chi-ya because of the whole Cheech thing. I shall correct my pronunciation. Especially since the world and their mother pronounce my name wrongly, and it drives me mental.

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  10. Ha, I thought it was Lu-chi-ya because of the Cheech nickname too, and because my cousin in Italy is Lucia, and I've always loved that name. It's beautiful no matter how you pronounce it, but being that my name is Giovanna, I have dealt with this sort of thing my whole life. I mean, where would you get, "Giovanni" when there's NO I AT THE END?? That said, I really just think she'll learn to patiently correct people and move on, and it'll be fine. This sort of thing doesn't scar one for life, trust me.

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  11. ugh, i grew up with everyone mispronouncing my name. although it's clearly spelled with an "e" and i say "m e r c i e" very slowly, people still smile and say, "oh hello M A R C Y." my husband goes through the same thing with his name although his isn't spelled the way it's pronounced, even when he repeats himself 2 or 3 times, people still continue to mispronounce it. introductions aren't fun for us. so i'm VERY anal about name pronunciation. obviously.

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  12. I've been pronouncing it "loo-chi-ya" in my head! It's pretty either way I think but that can be frustrating when people don't pronounce it the way you intend.

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  13. my dego neighbor is loo-chee-ya, calls herself "chia", like as in the pet.

    being a dego myself, i STILL go with your baby girls gorgeous name's pronunciation.

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  14. My niece is Lucia. Loo see ah. I don't know how much trouble they have had. Will need to ask my sister. I love the name. Obvs.

    And Hank/Henry was our top boy name. We still don't have a name for our girl due on Monday. Shit.

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  15. Lucía is one of the most beautiful names there are! We considered calling our daughter Lucía, but ended up with Olivia because in Scandinavia there is a patron Saint Lucia, and she would end up dressed up like her every Lucia Holiday at school here... so, we didn't want to do that to her.
    Anyways, I am Costarrican, so, I can't even consider "Loo-chee-ya" as a pronunciation.
    Celia as well, is a beautiful name.
    Be proud of them! They are both really cool, and call in your roots! The others not pronouncing it right: oh well... my daughter is Olivia, but they call her "U-livia" here in Norway because "O" is pronounced as "U" (or more precicely, like "oo" as in "Look")... and my poor dog Rafa... he became "Gggrafa" (note "german" gutural R sound) that fucks up the name completely... but... then again... it becomes charming in its own little way.

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  16. Oh, I love this post. We're just over 6 months pregnant and are heavily embroiled in the naming debate. My husband is the most fickle person when it comes to names, it turns out. He likes it one week, hates it the next. If we have a boy, we have the name nailed. I can't imagine it being anything else and it's beautiful. We both agree. It's if this bub turns out to be a girl that we're screwed. We have maybe three possibilities, but the pronunciation/shortening issue is a big one. At least we have a few more months to decide! xx

    ps. I love Lucia's name. Beautiful xx

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  17. The whole world has heard of Princess Diana, right? Well, people still call me Dana, Deena, Diane, etc. And they always confirm the spelling saying "is it Dyanne?" I've never it written that way my entire life. A lot of people even flip flop between Diane and Diana in the same conversation, at that point I just don't bother with correcting either.

    I always thought Cheech was Loo-see-ya, maybe because I grew up in S CA. In discussing names for our babies, my hubs said "you know all the names we like are going to curse them with having to correct people on the pronunciation, right?" But I figure it's a common annoyance to have, and not THAT psychologically damaging, so it doesn't really matter. My friend Dylan was always called Die-lan. You know, like Die-lan Thomas, Bob Die-lan, Die-lan from 90210??? Ha.

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  18. Loo-see-ya was how I was hearing it in my head! Maybe a So Cal thing?

    But people have so much trouble with names. We got to name D's little bro and picked "Ethan" with no middle name, figuring it would be really easy to live with. And were super proud of ourselves until his baptism party where his cake (supplied by an aunt) read "Feliz Bautismo Eden!". Yeah. Not so easy.

    And D is always getting called "Justin" which is very similar to "Dustin" but annoying for him.

    My name always seems to end up misspelled. I don't think you can win.

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  19. Interesting, I totally admit that I thought it was loo-chi-ya! But I like the see-ya pronunciation even more. People call me Katie all the time. It makes me want to punch them - which is a level headed, rational, lady-like reaction, I know.

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  20. my brain has been thinking loo-see-ya whenever I read your blogs, there are certainly going to be people in the world who come up with the right pronunciation!

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  21. Ha! I laughed out loud reading this- my daughter is also named Lucia. My husband and I love the name plus him being Hispanic and his family being made up of only Spanish speakers and my family only English speakers we thought Lucia was ideal because it's pronounced the same in both languages. Clearly we screwed up! Like your daughter everyone mispronunces her name and both my husband and I are shocked by it! I had no idea this would happen, but I still think it's the perfect name for her :).

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  22. Oh, man...I just had this debate with my husband and we decided on Lucia as a middle name for our newest girl Carolina. His family is all in Spain and mine her in the States and so we wanted a name that would sound the same (or close to it) in both languages. But of course, with the Castilian accent, it comes out as "Loo-THEE-ya." So there's yet another way your little one might get confused. But alas, I do love the name. And we all have our crosses to bear, so this one isn't so bad!

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