It’s small wonder that I tend towards the irascible, having the name that I do. Because, quite frankly, it’s a fucking pain in the ass.
Let’s start with the first (Christian) name. Kim. Easy to spell, easy to say, mostly it’s pronounced as written. (There’s the occasional “Kym”, but that’s — I think — an affectation, like Tyffynny instead of Tiffany.) My parents named me thus because they wanted a single, easy-to-pronounce, easy-to-spell appellation and in that, they were largely successful. However:
“But that’s a girl’s name!”
This is the first of the many crosses I have had to bear, and my personal history is replete with stories of me taking a swing at people — okay, boys — who taunted me thus.
In fact, “Kim” is one of those gender-free names, in that it’s not a name, but a title. In most versions of the early Anglo-Saxon language, “kim” means “chief” or “chieftain”, and as those ancient Anglo-Saxons didn’t care whether their ruler was male or female, the title bears no gender. (Boudicca, she of the anti-Roman rebellion, was actually “Kim Boudicca” because the tribes of those days had no monarchy: chiefs were elected leaders, not always hereditary ones. (Mostly, but let’s try to avoid wandering down that branch line.)
And that’s just my first name. (Also, in traditional English parlance, it’s my Christian name, but gawd forbid Americans are so intolerant as to use that when there are Muslims etc. in the populace who might take offense. In addition, there’s no established church, so despite the “Under God” and “So help me God”, anything Christian is doubleplusungood, government-wise.)
Also, because my parents saw no need to give me one, I have no middle name, which causes endless issues with U.S. officialdom. When I fill in the foul ATF 4473 form, for example, I have to put the idiotic “NMN” (no middle name) acronym, because to leave it blank or put in a “–” might screw things up totally.
And on we go.
My surname (“last” name in Murkin) is Du Toit. So my full name is “Kim du Toit”, because if the name is preceded by a name or “Mr.”, the “d” is not capitalized. But that’s only the beginning, because now we get to the Space Issue.
You see, there’s a space between the “du” and “Toit”. (However, in modern-day France, it’s mostly spelled “Dutoit”; go figure.) But there has to be a space, as you will see.
An aside: “toit” in French means “roof”, so my name literally means “of the roof” — perhaps because back in the mists of time, there was a Pierre who was a roofer, and so the family name might have become “Pierre of the Roof” (e.g. the Carter, Smith, Mason or Wainwright surnames). However, as far as I can make out, the family originated in the south of France near the Pyrenees mountains, so “toit” could also mean “high place”, and the “de/du” has an alternative meaning of “from”.
The family motto, by the way, is “Dios y El Rey”, a Spanish term meaning “God and the King”, making the Pyrenees origin still more plausible.
Back to the pesky last name. All my South African documents (birth certificate, passport, I.D. etc. are spelled “du [space] Toit” or if capitalized “DU [space] TOIT” (see the family crest). So when I came Over Here in the Great Wetback Episode of ’86, that’s how I continued to spell my name.
Which is where the problems began.
You see, a great number of databases don’t like a space appearing in a name field — and by “don’t like” I mean they fall over or reject the spelling. Worse still, it depends on which entity’s database we’re talking about. The DMVs of Illinois, New Jersey and Texas will not accept the space — so my name always becomes DUTOIT on my driver’s license, except in Illinois where it’s DU_TOIT (!) — but the State Department has no problem with the space, probably because they have to deal with all sorts of strange names, so in my naturalization certificate and passport it’s spelled correctly: DU [space] TOIT. Ditto the IRS and SocSec, thank gawd.
Another aside: some time ago I had occasion to visit the friendly folks at the local Social Security office (no kidding, they are totally unlike other government apparatchiks) and just for the hell of it, I asked to see my personal details. Imagine mu surprise when the SocSec screen showed my birthplace as “Johannesburg, Saudi Arabia“. I shared a merry laugh with the person on the other side of the counter, and luckily (for no reason I can explain) happened to have my passport with me, which showed my birthplace as Johannesburg, South Africa. The guy laughed, and said, “So which one is it?” whereupon I offered him $10,000 if he could find in any atlas a town named Johannesburg in Saudi Arabia. Then I asked to see the data input screen, and lo! “South Africa” appeared just below “Saudi Arabia” in the “check appropriate box” section. He changed it on the spot.
Now let’s talk about other entities, e.g. banks. You guessed it: on a couple of bank cards, the space is elided, and on others, the space appears without any issue. The problem comes, however, when I’m buying something online and have to enter my name As It Appears On The Card — because woe betide me should I add the space where there is none, or leave out the space when I shouldn’t. So every online purchase necessitates me asking (usually out loud, with only a few Bad Words) “Now which [insert Bad Word here] card am I using now?”
Finally, there’s the matter of its pronunciation. Oh FFS. In South Africa, it’s pronounced “doo toy” because over time it’s become an Afrikaans name, and the Dutchies never found a French name they couldn’t fuck up. Seriously: “François” (“frahns swah”) becomes “”Franche Wah” and “Labuschagne” (pronounced like champagne) becomes the awful “Laboo-Skachni” — the -ch pronounced like the Scottish “loch”.
When I came over to the U.S. I decided to revert back to the (correct) French pronunciation because nobody could spell it anyway, and I happened to prefer the French manner because it sounds kinda classy and it’s all about branding, folks. Also, the chicks thought it was super-sexy, and that’s all that counts, really.
On the day I was sworn in as a proud U.S. citizen, the clerk at the federal court asked me, before printing out my certificate, whether I wanted to change my last name. Clearly, this would be popular with someone named, oh, “Krmczyl” or “Psmith” — or “du Toit”/”Dutoit”, for that matter. Had I known this was possible ahead of time, I might have considered it quite seriously: Dutton? Dawson? but that would have created problems should I ever have to get access to any South African documents (as I did, much later). For continuity’s sake, therefore I said, “No, let me keep it just the way it is.”
So here we are.
And people wonder why I swear so much and am perpetually irritable.
Update: a couple of folks have asked for a phonetic pronunciation of “Du Toit”.
Doo Twah (with a short “ah”)
