Text 17 what’s in a name? Would you believe a man named Lynn, a woman named Douglas and a boy named Sue?

Oh, to be just another Tom, Dick or Harry! Even Bob or Fred would do. Instead, my parents decided 25 years ago to name their firstborn son Dana, a name so feminine that one baby-name book defines it as “a sweet, willowy, statuesque dancer.”

Ever since, my life has been a series of indignities. In grade school, when small boys try to be tough guys, I shrank in my seat as yet another substitute teacher, sensing a hoax, frowned during the roll call because a boy had answered to “Dana”. In summer camp, my laundry used to go astray as my name-tagged clothes were unfailingly sent to the girls’ bunks. Today my fiancée complains that people think she is seeing another woman.

Such abuse is no doubt foreign to those fortunate people whose names match their gender and character. But consider the plight of the stubby-faced Evelyn, Stacy, Tracy, Robin, Kim, Dale, Randy and Jody. “Picture this,” says former Pittsburgh Steelers star Lynn Swann. “You graduate from college as an All-American, and your football team wins the national championship. How is the first letter from the alumni association addressed? – ‘Ms. Lynn Swann’!”

Shirley Povich, a Washington Post sports columnist, was listed in Who’s Who of American Women. His biography was lifted directly from Who’s Who in America. “It plainly indicates that I’m a husband and father of three,” he says. When Beverly Carter, a retired newspaper executive, checks into a hotel, the clerk hands his credit card back to his wife. Eastman Kodak’s chairman, Kay R. Whitmore, was turned into a “chairwoman” in a Wall Street Journal article.

And what about Danes and Douglases who need bras, not neckties? Free-lance writer Michaele (pronounced Michael) Weissman was called Mike as a child. “It was horrible,” she recalls. “I felt so unfeminine.” She says her father, a college athlete, had wanted a boy. Later she thought up elaborate lies to explain her name, claiming, for instance, that the Puritan author Michael Wigglesworth, a man, was an ancestor.

“I tried to ignore my name at school,” says Daniel Timothy. “I wrote “D. Timothy” on homework, but it looked terribly stuffy, and I didn’t care much for the Timothy part either. My mother to this day calls me “Dane”, a pet name in both senses of the word, as I associate it with a dog.”

“Parents say only sticks and stones can break your bones, but of course names can also do you harm,” says Bruce Lansky, co-author of The Baby Name Personality Survey. “If you give your child a name with gender confusion, you are giving him needless problems.” Albert Mehrabian, a California University psychology professor, has conducted studies which show that ambiguous names are not desirable in terms of the impressions they make on others. Perhaps that’s why the singer Johnny Cash sings, “A boy named Sue” vows to “kill that man that gave me that awful name.”

“Parents give a boy a feminine name to make him appear warm and loving, or give a girl a masculine name to make her more competitive professionally,” says A. Mehrabian. But it often backfires. “These names give negative impressions in terms of success and morality.” What’s more, those of us who have iffy names are not taken seriously. Douglas Newsom, a journalism professor, tried to board an airplane recently and was asked to show photo identification. After complying, she complained and the agent suggested she change her name.

Of course, some people with ambiguous names actually do that. Former President Gerald R. Ford might not have made it to the Oval Office with his given name, Leslie King, Jr. And how many starring roles might John Wayne have lost had he not sloughed the name Marion Morrison?

Since I haven’t changed mine, I have to argue with the video-store clerk who accuses me of using some woman’s card when I want to rent a movie. However, occasionally I can’t just laugh it off. Once, when I applied for a summer job, I got a rejection letter addressed “Dear Ms. Milbank.” I wrote an angry reply. Had I made so little impression on the woman who’d given me a face-to-face interview? She apologized, blaming the mistake on her secretary. Still I didn’t get the job.

(by Dana Milbank, http://www.rd.com)