In my advanced fiction class a woman, who I so admire for writing in genre, wrote a supernatural western piece that contained dopplegangers, the four horsemen of the apocalypse and non stop action. The main character's names was Lourdes. One of our peers, who had to give a little presentation/summary on her piece pre workshop, had never heard of the name Lourdes. He, a white poorly mutton chopped male thought it was pronounced Lords. Somehow he wasn't the only one. A handful of students nodded in agreement, as did our professor (who I love, but grew up on a farm, and had a pony). The author had to pronounce Lourdes. The people who had never heard of the name Lourdes awed in unison. They tried to say name. They tried to dramatically roll their Rs. I wanted to bang my head against the table. I couldn't see the author from where I was sitting, but I wondered how far her eyes can rolled back.
In retrospect, I shouldn't have been as surprised as I was: everyone comes from different backgrounds that they can't control, and it's Depaul (where the total diversity it self promotes is only in its brochures). I guess I am too close to the name Lourdes. Lourdes was the first woman I....
I have been thinking about if there are any other names that don't sound like names. Ichabod, Kesha, Jensen, Kanye, Blaine, Mort, Biff, etc.Anyway, Elisa Gabbert has an interesting blog post about the names of the Kentucky Derby horses and how they sound like varieties of tomatoes. Here it is: http://thefrenchexit.blogspot.com/2011/05/kentucky-derby-horse-or-variety-of.html
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