20080627

My name

Three out of four of my grandparents were from Japan (the fourth was born in California, but she's also of Japanese heritage).  When I was born, my parents, apparently in a fit of cruelty, named me Tracey, a name of Celtic origin, which means "warrior like."  Why was that cruel?  One could say my mom rued the day she named me, because I've always been an argumentative pain in the ass, but no, it's weirder than that.

In Japanese, there is neither a "TR" sound nor a "SEE" sound.  Only one out of three of my grandparents could pronounce my name (my maternal grandfather had passed years before I was born)!  The closest approximation of my name my maternal grandmother (and several other immigrant relatives) could do was based on the Japanese syllables for:  tsu - re - i - shi, which came out sounding something like "Tsreish" or "Tsreishee" (hence, Rei, one of many nicknames I've used through the years).

Not that I don't like my name, but you'd think my parents would have named me something my relatives could pronounce, like Tara or Sara.

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