WHAT'S IN A NAME?

What's in a name?  Apparently quite a bit.  It obviously provoked Shakespeare into giving it some serious thought, and he certainly had better things to do with his time.

I mean, think about it.  When you hear the name Harry what pops into your mind first?  I know, I know, Clint Eastwood certainly sexed up the image with his 'Dirty Harry' movies and Prince Harry is obviously no slouch; but, really; what is your initial visual response?

Odds are you probably picture if not an old, laid-back, pot-bellied guy with suspenders and a half- chewed cigar; at least a guy with glasses and perhaps less hair than more.  You might picture a bookworm or a friendly, old Uncle; a senior citizen or a nerd.

So, if you have the name Harry, then it is incumbent upon you to either conform to that image or to redefine that presumptive collective portrait like hunky Clint did in the 70's and 80's and Prince Harry is doing because, well, he can do whatever the heck he wants to.  Obviously, the latter is a hell of a lot more daunting simply because you are working against the tide of popular visualization.

According to my birth certificate it states that my name is Susan Tucker Creamer.  This was the obvious and conscious intention of my mother and father.   Then how is it that rarely have I ever been referred to by my given name of Susan?

It is as much my name, as Moon Unit Zappa's is her name.  It is as much my name as Madonna's name is her name or Cher's name is hers.  And even if those close to Moon call her Moonie or,  if Sonny called Cher, Cherzie; or, as I have heard is the case, those close to Madonna call her Madge, we still know these women as Moon Unit, Madonna and Cher.  No one being introduced to them for the first time would dare to be so presumptuous as to refer to them by any name other than the one first given unless otherwise invited by them to do so.

So, please explain to me why for my entire life, I have been called Suzi?  


Oh, it wasn't always spelled that way.  It started out Susie, but that spelling was no longer hip by the time I reached 5th grade in 1965, and so I replaced three letters with two others and Suzy was born.  Still, I would have preferred being Susan.  

 Yet I don't recall ever being afforded the option, and since as I was growing up, the only time I was referred to as Susan, was when I was in trouble, you would think that I would have developed a natural aversion to the use of my formal name based on the negative association; but quite the contrary.  I embraced it even more.   I suppose that, as a direct result of my inherent rebelliousness, it was  logical to make the connotative leap and equate Susan with autonomy, freedom, power, and adventure!  

My mother claims she named me Susan for a couple of reasons: One, because she felt it had class.  She said it brought to mind Grace Kelley.

The second reason was because it was a second choice.  I was supposed to have been named after my father's late mother, Sara.  However, my grandfather had remarried by the time I was born and my parents didn't want to engender resentment from my step-grandmother.  It was a legitimate assumption, although unnecessary as the poor woman died before I could even walk.

So, Susan/Susie  it was.  But it got worse.

In 1967, when I was in 7th grade Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention came out with an album and an iconic fictional character and vocalist who went by the name, Suzy Creamcheese.

 I was Suzy Creamer.  Can you see what I was up against?  I didn't stand a chance.

But to the delight of nearly everyone of that generation who was even remotely savvy, I was and will forever remain Suzy Creamcheese.  There was no way after that point that I could realistically entertain any hope of reinstating my given name to it's rightful place, so I took the only option left open to me, which was to replace yet another letter, thereby giving birth to Suzi.  

It is not my name, nor my preference; but, as I mentioned earlier, I've been swimming against the current of collective perception and; subsequently, swallowing massive amounts of subjective preconceptions and opinions from the tides of popular culture about who and what I must be for over half a century. At this point I'm drowning in misguided imagery and misunderstood characterizations.

I don't hate, Suzi.  She's got her good points; but, overall, she is seen as being a little light in the lantern.  Not that I consider myself to be some sort of rocket scientist, but even Frank Zappa painted Suzy as being a tad in denial about her darker, more cerebral side.  


I can be silly, lighthearted and whimsical; but I can also sit for an eternity lost in thought as I grapple all logic while trying to understand the underpinnings of absolutely everything.  I don't think Suzi has that same mental fortitude.  Or at least no one thinks she does based on her name alone.

But I could not be Susan for yet another reason.  Aside from the insistent preference of both friends and family to retain the cuter, more frivolous-sounding appellation; I had another reason entirely my own.   For some reason completely unfathomable by me, whenever I introduce myself to anyone as Susan,  almost invariably by the time we part they are bidding adieu to Sue!  

Now, I apologize upfront if this offends any legitimate-and-loving-it Sue's out there, but of all the names in the world, that is one that least resonates with who I am. I have no problem addressing anyone else by that name, but the minute those two vowels and one lone consonant are uttered and assigned to me, it is like fingernails down a chalkboard. 


 No.  It's worse.  It is like a verbal evisceration of my entire consciousness.  It is a bad, bad mistake.

I did make an heroic attempt to vanquish both Susan and Suzi to the outer reaches of bitter memories once I graduated from high school.  I viewed going away to college as an opportunity to reinvent myself; and since I was an art and English major and those departments are practically required to service bohemians and renegades,  I decided to simply go by my middle name, Tucker.

It is a perfectly androgynous name full of character and quirkiness; and it would have remained in use to this day had I not married a very traditional sort of man who, upon meeting me said, "What the hell kind of a name is that for a girl?  Don't you have a normal one?"

So long, Tucker.


But I suppose it could be worse.  My nephews and niece are French and when my nephew was very small he couldn't pronounce Suzi and, instead, pronounced it Zu-Zu.  I understand that the familiar word for Aunt in French is Ta-Ta.  

That's right.  I am Ta-ta Zu-Zu; and, yes, there are some juicy visual implications there.

I don't think even Suzy Creamcheese could live that one down.