My name is Jena. Like Jamieson. But only one N. My parents spelled it wrong. They couldn’t help it. They were from Brooklyn. Most Jenas spell their names with two n’s.
I was named after my grandma Jenny. My parents liked the name Jena.
I spent my entire life never getting a magnet. Never a pen. There was never any tchotchke sold in a gift shop or souvenir shop with my name on it, mainly because: A) the name Jena was rare and b) if it was there it had two n’s. Obviously.
Because my name was spelled wrong, the first day of every class I have ever taken, I was embarrassed during roll call. Gina? Gina Cohen? (Cohen is my maiden name, by the way. Also Gina is pronounced Gena. If there’s any further confusion.) Every single time someone has called my name in a school or a doctor’s office, they say Gina. And I hate it.
“It’s Jena,” I would say, defeated, as I glanced around to see how many people heard.
Mortified that even though it was only for seconds, people thought my name was Gina. If anyone subscribing is named Gina, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I have such an aversion to the name. Probably because it was forced upon me, like chicken pox playdates in the 80’s.
Ok, I just googled Gina, because I wasn’t sure if it was Gina, or Gena. And this is what I found.
“Gina (occasional variants Geena, Gena, Jena, Jeana, Jeanna) is a feminine given name, in origin a hypocoristic form of names ending in -gina (by metanalysis of the latinate feminine suffix -ina), such as Luigina, Regina or Georgina, also of Virginia or Eugenia.”
Now I’m depressed because my name basically is Gina.
In high school, I would tell people on the street I was Tiffany. The singer. That part is complicated, and has absolutely nothing to do with the story. But because we are talking about names, I thought I would mention it.
My second internship in college was for a bank. I don’t know why, as I was a journalism major. But for some reason, I was at a bank. It’s not important. I didn’t like the job. A guy there kept calling me Jenna Jameson. Unfamiliar with the porn star, I thought he was saying it cause it was catchy. Like a mobster name. Bobby the bag, or something like that. He would call me JJ. He still calls me JJ. We remained friends, even after I discovered Jenna Jameson was a porn star.
The bottom line is. My name is Jena. I like it. As long as you’re not calling me Gena. Gina?
Tell me about your name.
Did you know my first name is actually William? So I had to tell my teachers throughout my childhood that I preferred to be called Macy, despite clearly not being a girl. If I was going through that in this day and age my teachers likely would ask for my pronouns.
Being a female Randi, my entire life people think my name is BRANDY. I just introduced myself the other day to someone and they said Hi Brandy nice to meet you. I'm ashamed to say, at 37 years old I still don't have the balls to correct people. At least people I know I'll never see again haha.