what's in a name?

you might have noticed that while i sign things tatiana, other nicknames of mine have appeared in guest posts and comments. or maybe you hadn't noticed and now you are like 'what? i thought she only ever went by tatiana? i have no idea what she's talking about. do you, willis?'

'um, what? i'm a tv star, i don't know about any blogger. leave me alone and the name is gary, not willis!'


a rose by any other name would still make me nauseous: my nicknames through time

age born: my mother names me tatiana leigh. she later tells me that when she was growing up, she had a friend named tatiana and she always loved the name and promised herself that she would name her first daughter tatiana. that's me! as for the leigh part, she just liked it but it does fit rather well with my irish lineage.

as an aside, all of my names are nature oriented: tatiana means fairy queen (like titania from a midsummer night's dream, leigh means field and my last name deals with horses.)
me and my entourage.


age a few months: tati/y. tatiana is just too long for most people! besides, everyone in my mom's family goes by nicknames. my tia mona is actually christened myriam, my mom, marcela, is either tia machi (just nonsense) or negra (litterally blacky, she's the darkest in her family). so i'm taty. yes, spelled with a y even though my name is spelled with an i. i brought this up at christmas this year and my aunt and cousin apologized for misspelling it all these years! eak, oh well.
the first image that appears when you google tati. also fun because i studied flamenco.


age 6: as every child with an unusual name, i fantasized about having a 'normal' name. and because i was an unusual child, i wrote these fantasies down in the form of what my diaries would be like if i was 16. my name was charlotte rose and i could drive and i had the best boyfriend in the world. ironic how at 24, none of these things are true. also funny that the smell of roses makes me nauseous and this:

You Are Most Like Charlotte!

You are the ultimate romantic idealist You've been hurt before, but that hasn't caused you to give up on love. If anything, your resolve to fall in love is stronger than ever. And it's this feminine optimism that men find most appealing about you. Romantic prediction: That guy you are seeing (or crushing on)? Could be very serious - if you play your cards right!

Which Sex and the City Vixen Are You?

age elementary and middle school: my bus driver calls me tidy. for years. i guess i was a really neat kid.

not nearly as embarrassing as the librarian calling me titiana.

this is little miss tidy. as you can tell from my neat pig tails, clean shoes, and impeccably even yellow skin tone.


age 11: while in england, i experienced a new kind of put down based on my name- previously, all insults had to do with my nerdiness- brain, walking encylopedia, etc. my new male classmates call me tart, which i didn't get at all, until one of my teachers over hears them and they get in huge trouble for insinuating that i'm a whore. they should know that americans don't put out until they study abroad in college, not in 7th grade.

this is not a self portrait, you cockney bastards!


age 12: apparently, my tormentors back in the states can tell that my name is now fair game and i gain the nickname tardy, short for retarded, not because i'm late because i'm super timely. but something strange happened in england. while i was able to take crap for being smart, i saw no reason to make fun of my name or the fact that i was american, so once i came back for 8th grade and people started to bother me, i flipped a desk, talked back in class, and threw rocks at cars. basically, i was a cool kid for like a second. so tardy was more of an endearing nickname than a taunt.

i am tatiana, the anti-tardy tiger and i will rip your face off.


age 13-16: ah high school. so witty! my life was split between my all girls school, where i was the basic tati, and coed catholic youth group, where sexually repressed boys liked to call me titiana, titi, and the most basic of them all, tits. yeah, good times, good times.

(i am not even going to attempt to google image titiana, titi, or tits. i may not necessarily be family friendly but i don't need to revel in it.)


age 17: i feel like tati makes me sound like a 3 year old, so i decide to introduce myself as leigh when i get to college. yeah, that never worked out. but i did always introduce myself as tatiana. of course, four syllables is too much for most people, so it quickly got shortened again to tati, t money, t bone (never really in seriousness) and sometimes just t. ah well, i tried.

i prefer filets myself, so you are welcome to the right handed side of the steak.


age 19: i study abroad in australia, the land of nicknames and shortening of everything. if americans couldn't deal with tatiana, aussies' heads would explode for all the enunciating. i was briefly deemed fisty being able to stick my entire fist in my mouth but that really isn't something you want to shout across the quad on a crowded spring day. so, i was christened tats.

i have to say, i think this may be my favorite nickname. it just seems so spunky and fun. you wouldn't really hear 'oh tats can't come out because she is such a loser and has to cat sit all night long'. instead tats is the kind of girl who tells crazy stories at brunch before going shopping. she's the lady who gets second degree sunburns in sydney. she sleeps on dunes with kangaroos! she wins catchphrase all the time! tats is a mascot of fun! woohoo go tats!
tat this! for that to be at all funny, you will need to know that tatting is one way to make lace. see, i make you laugh AND you get to learn something.

age 20-present: apparently, adults can handle the full name, so now i get tatiana in addition to friends who still call me tati, tats, and t. because of all these names, i will often respond to most names that begin with t, causing me to raise my head often and look around like a fool. there are a lot of names that begin with t. at this point, i do really like my name and i think it suits me. i no longer cringe when people tell me that they love my name- instead i respond 'well thanks, i didn't have much to do with it but i'll pass along your thoughts to my mother.'

i no longer dream up diary entries of myself with different names.



i just daydream about having a real salaried job. one day, i'll need that lanyard for some sort of work affiliated id.