1. Uhhhhhhh……How do you expect me to say that?
a.  With your mouth. I expect you to say it with your mouth.  I understand that looking at my name on a piece of paper can seem intimidating, but try. If nothing else, call my last name, and I will teach you how to say my first name.
2. There has to be a story behind that…?
a. Of corse there is.  There has to be.  My parents can’t have given me my name simply because they like my name. there has to be a story. Something that would explain exactly why anybody would give their child a name so difficult. You wouldn’t be asking me about a story if my name was Ashley.
3. Do you have a nickname I can call you by that’s easier?
a. If I wanted you to call me by a nickname I would have introduced myself with said nickname.  I am not here to please the adults in charge of me. And I will not allow you to cram my name, my title, my family’s impact into a box in order for you to control it better.
4. What are you going to do when you get married? Nothing is going to sound good with Shaughnessy.
a. You need to stop. Right now.  For three main reasons.
1. You are making assumption about me and my future based off what you want me to be or what you perceive me to be. You have never asked me if I want to ever get married, so what makes you think I will.
2. If I get married, who says I have to change my name? Is there some new law or rule that demands a name-change from me? I like my last name. I am proud of the family I came from. I am awestruck by all the things my family has accomplished. And I refuse to throw my father’s impact on my life away simply because another man has come along.
3. If I get married, and if I decide to change my name, than obviously it means that I like the name combination well enough to go through the rest of my life with that name.  I obviously think it’s sounds beautiful, and ultimately that’s all that matters. If you don’t agree, than I guess it’s a good thing your name is Ashley.
5. Wow, your parents really wanted you to be bullied during high school, didn’t they?
a. What parent honestly wants their child to be bullied or looked down on? No my parents didn’t want me to be bullied, they wanted me to ask questions about my name so they could tell me about my family. They wanted me to be proud of where I came from. They wanted me to grow up with the stories of my ancestry beating though my body as if they were as important to my survival as oxygen or blood. My parents wanted me to know everything about my Nana, a women who was shunned by her entire family, including her 8 siblings, because she made the decision to come to America.  They wanted me to memorize the stories of my granddad who fought in wars in order to protect the freedoms I enjoy today, the same way I was taught to memorize the states and their capitals. They wanted me to know about my father’s mother, and the years that she spent working her body to the bone in order to make sure her siblings were fed and taken care of while her mother worked to keep them fed, the same way I know first aid and how to take care of somebody when they are hurt. My parents didn’t want me to be bullied they wanted to be able to trust that other parents would teach their children acceptance of things that are different from them. They wanted to be able to know that my teachers would put a stop to any and every negative thing said against me. And if neither of those happened, they wanted me to learn to let other’s words roll off of my back like water off of a duck’s. They wanted me to learn that my opinion of myself is more valuable than other’s opinions of me. My parents wanted me learn about the importance of inheritance.