That's Not My Name...

What’s the first thing you do when you come across someone you haven’t met before? That’s right, you shake hands—or in Chilean culture, kiss cheeks—and offer up your name. Seems simple enough. That is, until you have a name that is spelled, and sounds, completely foreign to those Spanish speakers around you. Then it becomes a back and forth game of repeating your name a minimum of seven times until you gradually inch towards something that sounds close enough. Most introductions go something like this:

“¡Hola! Me llamo *insert typical Chilean name, such as Álvaro, Felipe, Maria, or Dani*”

“¡Hola! Me llamo Shawna” (kiss on cheek)

“¿Juana?” Translates to Joanna—close, but not quite

“Shawna”

“¿Chana?”

“Por supuesto, no. Shawna” Translates to—Definitely not. Shawna”

“¿Shawona?”

“Shawna”

And so on and so forth until we get there.

The Spanish language is extremely phonetic, so all letters have more or less one pronunciation. Thus seeing the name “Shawna Taets” prompts the pronunciation “Chawona Tahehts”, or something along those lines. The “sh” sound also doesn't exist in the Spanish language, so they normally replace it with a “ch”, making “sushi” into “suchi” or “Sheraton” into “Cheraton”, to use some examples I’ve come across. This means that “Shawna” would become something like “Chana”. In any other country this wouldn’t be a problem, but here in Chile, Chana describes a woman who acts something like this…

This is Snooki, for those of you who have miraculously avoided the Jersey Shore, guido craze

Not exactly the endearing personality descriptor that I’m going for in my 5 months here. Therefore I take extra care to make sure that at least the “sh” sound gets in there. The best pronunciations I’ve gotten so far have been Shawarma—which is now stuck as a nickname—China, Chawana, Chana, and Karana—this was written on my cup that one time I broke down and went to Starbucks. I have no explanation. Then of course there are all of the nicknames for gringas such as myself, including, but certainly not limited to, gringa, gringuita, Barbie, and rubia (blonde). Hey, at least they’re normally said with affection and they prevent me from getting called a Chilean Snooki on a regular basis! Don’t even get me started on how they go about working through Taets…