Personal Culture Paper

Mary Biviens

WIFYS

Dr. Shannon Mortimore-Smith

2/24/2015

Adapting to my Identity

My name is Mary Louise Biviens. Throughout my life I’ve never been very fond of the name. I hated it! I felt like it was to unique or too original for me. I had to hear the song Mary had a little lamb all my life, it was annoying. Thinking about it balls me up. I know that people don’t mean to tease me about it but after a while you’ll get tired too.  My middle name, oh gosh, where do I begin? First of all, I never even knew how to spell Louise until I was 11 years old when I finally saw my birth certificate for the first time. My mom only told me what my middle name was. I would always spell it differently every time I had to write it down. It wasn’t too many times anyways because I barely acknowledged it. The only good I get from my last name is that I can tell people that it’s French. Even though I’m not French I feel as though that would add brownie points for me and I won’t get picked on. I could name the top three reasons why I hate my last name: 1) It was my birth father’s name whom I never meet before and my mother claims he disowned me, 2) It was a challenge for me to connect the words in cursive which made me not like my signature very much, and 3) It sounds ugly and anyone I come across either spells it or says it wrong, which I feel is a bit annoying as well.

I wouldn’t say that my first name was all bad, just the songs I would have to hear relating to it. But other than that, it’s an old name. I told my mother this and she did not like that I embraced it. She told me that I was named after my grandmother who had passed away two months before my birth. This made me realize that I should feel like my name is important. That my name was holding the significance from another soul. I learned to embrace my first name and began making fun nicknames with it to love it even more; such as Marebear, M-Bones, MaryBerry, etc.. I come from a family with simple names, my sisters names are Amanda, Catherine, Ashley, Jennifer, Sylvia, Stephanie, and Jasmine. We all come from a bad neighborhood and she says that the goal to give us our names was to take us places. For example, if I were to have a name like Shanequa competing to get a job with just the same qualifications on my resume as a lady named Mary and there was only one position available left, Mary would most likely be called in for the interview before me. I feel like that’s a good advantage to have for someone like myself. I need to put in determination but my name would just be a plus.

My middle name never did hold a close place in my heart to share with the world. I always felt embarrassed with this name. I just always think, I am so lucky it’s my middle and not my first. Filling out job, college, or even doctor applications, I never put down my middle name. If I needed to, all they would get is the initial. In elementary school once one student knew my middle name, I was ruined after that. Everyone teased me for it and I was embarrassed. They knew how to easily get on me about that and how much I dislike it. So basically that only made matters worse. Eventually, when I hit middle school the jokes died down and most people forgot about my middle name. To this day I do not tell people my middle name because I feel that I will always get teased for it.

You may think that my last name isn’t really all that bad but to me it is. I would tell people that my last name is Jackson instead of my original one because Jackson is my adopted father’s last name. I do not see him as my adopted father, he is my real father to me and so that gives me an excuse that it is my last name. I feel there is no harm in saying that because I am basically not lying. Growing up I’ve always had to correct people on how to say my last name. Once at my current job, my boss would always spell my first and last name wrong. It was Marie Bivens on my payroll, Marry on my name tag, and Marry Bivins for when I had to clock in on the cash register. Now this is a true story, you would have thought he did this on purpose because I’ve corrected him many times. He said he didn’t care and that I had to deal with it but I was worried that the bank would not let me cash my check. Since I had to tell him to correct my name and he still forgot it many times later, I feel as though he does not respect me enough. I just wish my last name wasn’t so difficult to people because then I would not have to go through this. My last name is usually spelled as ‘Bivens’ and that is why people often spell it wrong even if my name is sitting right in front of them. Its pronounced as BIV’-ens but when people see it and read it aloud they say it as BIV’-ee-ens. My mom was mad at me when I told her that I was just going to address my last name as Bivens to make it simpler for others and myself. She hated that idea. I still do not like my last name but I still find ways to cope with it. I will tell people to call me Bivv for short.

Everyone is born with a certain name for a reason. I’ve learned that through my life. My mother named me for a reason because she knew I deserved this name. I feel as though when people have children they are excited and honored to give their child a name. Before, I had not thought of it like that and I took my name for granted. I should feel proud. I now embrace my name because I got to understand what it means. My name means someone who has ambition, who is determined, mindful, trustworthy, dependable, beautiful, and has dreams and goals set out for herself. Could I be all these things if my name were to be different? Probably, but I would never know and never attempt to try because I feel as though my name plays a major part in my identity. I can say that I love my name now because I love who I am and who I’m becoming. I do not wish to be anyone other than myself. I am Mary Louise Biviens and I can only be me and no one else.