Although my namesake grandmother died during the summer between my 8th grade and high school freshman year, I remember two things about her double-name issues. The first one was a very old "joke" that one of her friends would constantly tell her: "Mary Rose sat on a tack. Mary rose." (Not funny to me back in the 1970's; therefore, not funny to 2018 readers. I get it.)
I also remember her indicating that more than one of her friends was allowed to call her MARE-rose. She was a formidable woman in stature, bust size, and voice volume, so I must surmise that no one got away with calling her just "Mary".
As a Catholic school student myself from Grade 1 through High School, I did the following.
a) In the earliest primary grades, I likely let the nuns call me "Mary" just like they did with the three other combo-Marys in our class. Wear my green plaid uniform, use my over-sized #2 lead pencil, and try to be quiet. (Vocally, I favored grand-mama, so that last one almost never succeeded.)
b) In later grades, I rarely but occasionally insisted that my closest friends call me (as my parents and sister did) "Emmy." That way they didn't call me the dreaded "Mary" by mistake. However, if they were also in my school classes, I wouldn't want them to call me "Emmy" there, which seemed such a childish nickname to me at the time.
c) During my girl-to-woman years, I firmly insisted on everyone calling me "Mary Rose," correcting them if necessary and cringing when they erred. I actually preferred being called "Mary Ruth," "Mary Alice," "Mary Beth," or almost anything over the hideous generic "Mary."
When I went away to the University of Missouri at Rolla to study computer science, the problem was much more easily solved. Everything was an acronym to us mainframe nerds in the early 1980's, so I just went by "MR".
Throughout my career years as mainframe analyst, I was able to keep enough respect in every workplace to be called by the double name in its entirety... until that darned recession.
Running a B&B in Florida had a certain cachet about it as long as the guests never saw our financial books. Also, when you serve as all-purpose phone and internet reservations clerk, in-person check-in specialist, bookkeeper, and most finicky housekeeper, your super-polite guests would likely articulate a 15-syllable name if you requested same.
It wasn't until I took a Central Florida hourly call center job in early '11 that I opted to morph into just-Rose. My reasoning at that time involved a calculation about how much more quickly I could clearly articulate the required script if I had a one-syllable name to use in the line "My name is BLANK," like my many much-younger coworkers. And, of course, I was still deemed too slow at that job, right on the cusp of my 3-month tenure and earning health insurance.
Once we moved back to St. Louis for me to "get a good job," I learned that using "Rose" as a preferred name is so much simpler than this whole blog entry and/or correcting everyone who tries to shorten my given name. I've also consistently altered my online presence to "MaryRose" with no space (which never really succeeded in preventing acquaintances online from "Mary," sadly).
A friend from my grade school recently re-entered my life after our not having seen each other since one of our high school summers. She asked me at lunch a few weeks ago what I preferred to be called, since my email auto-signature just shows "Rose" and my married name.
Only a very considerate friend would think to ask about that. I only wish I could be equally considerate and remember whether or not she called me "Emmy" back then.
