Call me Hena.

I have a very common, unextraordinary name.

The name Heather is so basic, so average, so normal...so blah, in fact, that the name has absolutely no real meaning. I envy my friends and loved ones with names that have fascinating (and often amazingly appropriate) meanings: Karl = manly and strong; Sarah = princess; Susan = lily; Joseph = God will increase; Erik = honorable ruler; Ava = like a bird; Diana = divine;...and Heather = a flowering plant. Just a plain ol' plant.

I have never found a pop song with the name Heather in it, there are no great literary characters with the name Heather (although I was always delighted to occasionally read about characters walking through the heather on the moor, or lying down in the soft heather), and, of course, the only movie I know with the name Heather prominently featured is the 1989 cult classic Heathers, a "delightfully dark and deranged take on adolescent angst and isolation." Throughout high school and college my name was constantly being associated with a film about murder and teen suicide...("Hi! I'm so-and-so." - "Hello, I'm Heather." - "Heather? Hey! Have you seen that movie Heathers?! It was so cool when that one Heather drank the cleaning fluid and died!")...oh, yay.

However, I now find myself here in Germany with the most exotic-sounding name imaginable...Heather! Noone seems to have ever heard it before! It is so uncommon, I am often asked to repeat it once or twice! And now I am faced with a new problem...noone can pronounce it!! "Hallo! Ich heisse Heather." - (a confused look) - "Hea-ther." - "Heva?" - "Hea-THer" - "Hena?" - "Hea-THHHer" - "Heta?" - "um.....ok."

It's that nasty TH sound that gets them. Very few languages have that sound, and German is certainly not one of them. Earlier this week I got a ride to a church function from a German family that live near us. On the way home from Karlsruhe, I tried to teach the three children how to say my name. I had them put their tongue between their teeth and blow...after we spit all over each other, they repeated my name over and over again..."Heva, Hetah, Heterr, Henar"...and asked me over and over again if they were saying it right. I introduced myself to one of the older women who was riding with us, telling her (in German), "My name is Heather. It's kind of difficult to say." - "Oh, no! Hena...that's an easy name to say! Hena."

And don't get me started on how people pronounce my last name! ("Hairvoot?")

Ah, well...I still can't pronounce the name of my own town right. "Ich wohne in Bühl." - "Bohl?" - "Bühl." - "Bohl?" - "Büühl" - "Ach so! Bühl!" Those two little dots are hard to pronounce!



(My apologies to my wonderful parents, Don = world leader, and Kathleen = pure, who lovingly gave me my beautiful name. Of course, they were expecting me to be a boy and had planned to name me David = beloved, but upon receiving a daughter instead, took the suggestion of my aunt DeeDee [Dorothy] = gift of God, and named me Heather. Honestly, thank you for my beautiful [if meaningless] name!)