William Safire took up the question of names, and their pronunciations, in his language column, back in 1983. “Your house may not be your castle,” he wrote, “but your moniker is your property to pronounce the way you like and to correct others about.” . . .
. . . "Let’s go back to Texas. Last year, Beto O’Rourke ran for the U.S. Senate, losing to the incumbent, Ted Cruz. The senator’s full name is “Rafael Edward Cruz.” (His father came from Cuba as a refugee.) The future “Ted” grew up as “Felito.” But in junior high, he wanted out of that name. He tells the story in his autobiography, published in 2015.
"The problem with “Felito,” Cruz says, “was that it seemed to rhyme with every major corn chip on the market — Fritos, Cheetos, Doritos, Tostitos — a fact that other young children were quite happy to point out.” He continues, “I was tired of being teased. One day I had a conversation with my mother about it and she said, ‘You know, you could change your name. There are a number of other possibilities.’”
"This hit the young man like a thunderbolt. “It was a shocking concept,” Cruz says. “It had never occurred to me that I had any input on my name.” He decided on “Ted,” derived from his middle name, Edward.
"Self-reinvention is as American as apple pie. Think of Jay Gatsby, a.k.a. the Great Gatsby, who started out in North Dakota as “Jimmy Gatz.” “Gatz,” huh? Possibly Jewish? This has been a theory, or suggestion, among literary critics.
"There was a time when many American Jews felt they had to Anglicize, or de-Judaize, their names. I think of a pair of tenors, who were brothers-in-law, as it happened: Rubin Ticker became Richard Tucker; Pinky Perelmuth became Jan Peerce. Italians got in on the act as well: Dino Crocetti became Dean Martin." . . .
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