Crooked Nose 

            I’ve never paid much attention to the meanings of names – the meanings you find in books of baby names, I mean. My parents didn’t know the meaning of my name when I was born, and it wasn’t until fifth grade that I discovered the meaning: a Scottish surname meaning "crooked nose" from Gaelic cam "crooked" and sròn "nose." The meaning doesn’t affect me, but it still bothers me a little because my nose actually is crooked.

            What bothers me even more about my name, though, is that people don’t understand it when I say it. Sometimes I honestly wonder if I'm handicapped and everyone is too nice to tell me about it, because I usually have to repeat my name at least twice when I'm introducing myself. Because nobody understands me when I say it.

"What's your name?"

"Cameron."

"What?"

"Cam-uh-ron."

"Huh?"

“Cah May Ron.”

“Oh, Cameron. Okay.”

My whole life, I have had to repeat my name. No matter how I say it, no matter how I change it, I have always had to repeat my name. Cam, Cameron, Cam'ron, Cam-uh-ron, it's all the same. Nobody hears me. What I don’t get is that Cameron isn't a rare name by any means, I mean, Cameron Diaz, Kirk Cameron, Cameron from Ferris Beuller's Day Off, etc. We've all heard the name before. Why should it be any different when the name is heard from my lips? The answer I believe most likely is that people really just don’t care what my name is, they are just asking politely and will forget moments later. Though I worry that the answer might be more complicated than that. The conspiracy theorist in me believes that I was dropped on my head in the delivery room and my mom has been too kind to tell me that I’m mentally handicapped and speak with a heavy slur. That would be one hell of a cover-up though.

One day while working at the college admission office, a professor called me on the phone to ask about how to help someone apply to the school. The people who usually called me at work were foreign – only natural, seeing as I worked in the international Admissions office – so they understandably had a hard time with my name and I understandably had a hard time with theirs. It's comforting to know that someone named Zhao Xiang Li would have as hard a time with my name as I would have with his. This BYU professor, on the other hand, was pure American.

"What's your name?"

"Cameron."

"Stammer?"

"Cameron."

"Tamarind?”

"Sure."

Tamarind. Honestly… Tamarind? Who did this guy think I was? I didn’t care enough to correct him. I'd just let him think that my parents were hippies and that I have a brother named Papaya and a sister named Sangria. After two tries, I will not correct anyone.

I’ve never had any other problems with my name though. Kids in elementary school tried to make fun of my name, but the best they could come up with to mock it was “camera,” which I always viewed as kind of a lackluster insult. At recess they would walk up to me with smarmy looks spread across their faces only to say, “How’s it going… CAMERA!” They would then laugh and revel in their comic genius and I would sit and wonder if they would always be that easily pleased.

My name has always been just a name to me – I don’t hate it, and I don’t love it. My name doesn’t define me, even if I do have a crooked nose. I am just Cameron, and that’s all the explanation my name needs.