My name, like a bell.

I hear it and I turn my head. I put down my pen. I fall in love.

In recent years, I’ve questioned my name quite thoroughly. Oscar Manuel Suh-Rodriguez. Each component of my name has a story to it. One part beautiful, another revolutionary, another romantic–it’s all the things I could want to feel about a name. But rather than harping on about its history, I’d like to harp on about something that can be easily pulled from off the page. The sound of the round letter “O.” This opening vowel, I believe, has always been my barrier and my shield.

To utter the “O” of Oscar, as it is often pronounced by English speakers, is to ask for something a bit hard. “AH-sker,” is what I have heard by teachers, friends, lovers, and strangers. It really isn’t too comfortable or fun thing for the mouth to perform. The accented dropping of the jaw–”AH, AH, AH.” Who likes that?

Although I wear it happily, “AH-scar” is not the name my parents gave me. My parents named me the wet “ohs-kahr” you hear in Spanish. International folk and multilinguists have always had an easier time with it as well. The treatment of the vowel in the Romance languages and others is sweet and simple. “Osuka,” a past lover called me with ease.

So what is it to utter “AH?” That same sound you make in the throws of pain or love; that sound at the start of a mournful sob; that cry when a drop of hot oil drips onto your skin and no one’s around. It’s so visceral and revealing of a call. It’s a sound I prefer to make when I’m safe and alone.

It is this “AH” that my teachers needed to summon in order to scold me. And so, most of them would remove my name from their remarks. To chide me by name would be to reveal themselves. Thus, I believe it robbed them of the satisfaction the names with more bite to them inspired. “James, Gene, Katherine, Amanda.” They leave the mouth feeling like a blade.

This has often lead to my name being spoken quite infrequently. My first romantic partner, I recall, uttering my name only twice in three years. And I remember this pattern emerging within other relationships and marking it. To not hear my own name occasionally lead me to pebble-sized lonelinesses and disconnections. I became, “You” to someone.

To hear my dear name spoken is so beautiful and expansive a spell, it is to say “I know you. I’m calling out to you. You are here and I’m here with you.” It is for butterflies to land on my cheeks. It is to open the garden gates to let in the spring. Say “Oscar” and you have me–I am a pup and you are holding my bowl.

Oscar, Oscar, Oscar.

Truly, I appreciate how my name has taken care of me. It’s just rare enough that people rarely forget it or the cartoon character I am that wears it. My name is not who I am but, like the ring that keeps my keys together, it is useful. These five letters are there for me–ready to appear and disappear, sit atop a poem or after a letter, or be sung sweetly from a friend, a lover, a stranger.

“O” –my name, my shield.

Tail First