3 minute read
My name is Keeva - not Caoimhe - O’Shea. This normally seamless first stage of introduction tends to cause all sorts of bother and frustration for people when they meet me, ruining my first impression and thereby destroying my chances of ever achieving the role of Secretary-General of the United Nations, which is a largely reputation-based role. If only my parents had named me something simple like me Antonio, Ban or Gladwyn, I would certainly have become Secretary-General by now.
Many people insist that my name is Caoimhe and I’m just getting it wrong. My friend Anthea has exactly the same problem, and wrote about it in her blog last year so probably thinks I’m stealing her blog entry idea, which I probably am. Her account of it is arguably funnier and more succinct than mine, so if you want to read about this topic from a more experienced blogger, just go here go here and know that I suffer the same pain as Anthea.
When I meet a new person, there are different protocols for responding to this issue within different settings. If it’s in a pub and they can make a sound that I can recognise, that’s enough. My voice is naturally quiet and I’m not going to waste my limited communicative resources to correct and annoy them. Among groups of friends, if a new person gets it wrong, sometimes someone else corrects them, which I like. Other times I’ll correct them, or just leave it if the conversational flow would suffer from it. At work, most annoyingly, it must be corrected. Immediately.
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| Keeva's office is just down there.... |
One time I was doing sound for an artist who refused to respond to my corrections when he called me Caoimhe. He was preparing for his show, which ended up being a really incredible show, so was assumably grounded in a psychological and spiritual dimension which was far beyond the futility of things having names in the first place. I was inexperienced at that time and didn’t know too much about this pre-show higher cognitive plane. So, when he said ‘Caoimhe’ and I automatically responded with ‘Keeva’ he completely ignored it, perhaps assuming that I was preparing for a role in a play as a parrot and was engaging in some form of method acting. Eventually, he responded to one of my ‘Keeva’s', with a ‘Huh?’. I explained that:
“it’s Keeva.”
“- Caoimhe?”
“Keeva.”
“- Caoimhe?
“Keeeeva.”
“- Caoimhe?”
“Keeva! With a ‘K’!”
He sort of laughed at how worked up I’d become, and responded:
“Keeva-with-a-K O’Shea!”
He has called me by this full title ever since.
Sometimes people ask me where the name Keeva originates, thinking that this will smooth over the frustrations that we’ve just overcome in ascertaining my name. They quickly realise their mistake, as I’m forced to launch into another painfully complicated explanatory ramble:
I was born in Holland, and lived there from the ages of 0-2 and then lived in Germany from the ages of 2-4*. When we lived in Germany, other kids in Kindergarten used to call me 'Kiwi' because they couldn’t pronounce the name 'Caoimhe'. This practice was surprisingly upsetting to two year old me. So I wrapped myself up in a Caoimhe cocoon and emerged from the chrysalis shortly afterwards as a phonetically magnificent Keeva, not realising that only in Germany do people take things literally enough as to actually believe you when you tell them your name. I’ve been a Keeva ever since.
* I try my best to leave it at that but sometimes can’t help but elaborate on my geographical origins: ...next we moved to Donegal for a year and Kerry for four years before moving to Galway, which I call my home because I’ve been there since the age of 9 with the exception of four years for college in Maynooth, so why not.
