The first us French, with an accent.
On the Mac, it’s option-e-shift-e.
On the typewriter, the accent doesn’t exist,
and my naked name reads like an affected
misspelled diminutive, say, Cyndi or Debi.
Use of the proper pronunciation is restricted
to bonafide French-speakers,
or high school buddied from language lab.
I never introduce myself that way; it’s a little
overdressed for the Hungarian in Colorado.
Aimée means Beloved– not a bad way to fall into being.
Some names mean Kind of All He Surveys
or Eager To Get Ahead In Life, so if nomenclature
is destiny, I lucked out. The original Aimée
was a Parisian actress with a scandalous past.
The Joan has long since disappeared, first
shrinking to J., then dropping out of sigh altogether.
It’s after George, nee Geza, the only grandparent I never met.
Maybe that’s why– the whole enterprise feels unreal,
this mythological man, the father of my father,
stripped of his rightful history by an immigration clerk.
The last is German– unpronounceable and long.
Upon marriage, I had the chance to change it to
something perkily Irish, but who would believe that?
Truth in the packaging is the result– beloved green mountain,
two Europes colliding, scandal and myth, the middle missing.