that's not my name.

I have always understood the uniqueness of my name. I’ve never come across another Lizbie, except that one time in Wellfleet when I was four and my whole family was waiting outside a restaurant, but that’s an entirely different story. Since it’s a little outside-the-box, I usually have to spell it out. In my 21 years, I’ve seen “Lizby,” “Lisbee,” and “Liz B.” among many others. I have never, however, had any trouble with the pronunciation. Until now.

We travel into town by bus every Monday and Friday afternoon to take ballet class from these two previous Italian ballerinas, so you can assume their first language is Italian. After our two hour class, which is now making walking painful, our teacher asked us what our names were. When it was my turn, I said, “Lizbie,” but she didn’t quite get it. I repeated myself. Still nothing. She had me spell it. “Oh! Lezbie!” A few of the other girls from the Accademia tried helping me out, but nothing worked. Another Italian working at the studio who saw we were having trouble even told her she was saying it wrong. It’s really not a big deal, I just think it’s funny that most Italians can’t pronounce my name even if they tried.

I guess I’ll just have to pick a different name to introduce myself as whenever we leave the villa. Any suggestions?