A Rose by any other name

Dannii Minogue is the younger sister of Kylie Minogue, lesser known to those of us in the United States, but apparently wildly famous in them there Australia, New Zealand, and Asia parts. Her full name is Danielle Jane Minogue.

Dannii is an interesting nickname for Danielle. My name is also Danielle, but I go by Dani, which seems woefully SHORT now that I know about Dannii. I mean, think of all the extra letters I could have had. And when you do a web search for "Dannii" you're pretty much only going to find Dannii Minogue, which speaks to the originality of the name with the additional letters.

I had a job a few years ago where there was a woman named Dennie. Our boss was British and maybe because of the way Dennie and Dani sounded to him, he thought the names were too similar. I told him he could call me Danielle, but there was a guy named Daniel, so he didn't want to call me Danielle either. I don't really know why it mattered, but maybe because it was a customer service type job where you have to giv your name out to customers all the time, he felt it was important that we all have a unique name. To me, since there was no Dani or Danny or Danielle, I didn't see why I had to be renamed, but I decided to be Elle; the second half of Danielle. Only I don't really like the sound of Elle, which sounds like El, as in "el", which is just the masculine "the" in Spanish, as in el perro or el insecto. So I made them pronounce it like "Ellie" but spell it "Elle". To me, this was funny, and kind of my way of getting back at everyone for making me change my damned name. It was weird. People would call my name at work "Elle. Elle. ELLE!" and I wouldn't respond... or I would go to sign a note or Post It and start to write "D-a-n" oops, try again.

There were three Mikes there at one point, with one Mike being the owner of the company. Since he didn't do customer service, another guy was also allowed to be Mike, but he was Big Mike. Then another Mike came and was faced with the same ultimatum I was faced with: we want to hire you, but... you'll need to choose a different name. He ended up using his surname; I can't remember what it was, but it sounded like a first name. Big Mike left, and another Mike was hired, and he decided to go by "Tony", which I think was his middle name.

The whole thing falls under the category of truly f-ing ridiculous things I have done for money, a category which is broad and vast indeed.

Now that my eyes have been opened to the existence of Kylie Minogue's sister, and the truly exotic spelling options available to those of us named Danielle, my nickname name looks like a dull and lusterless, straightforward, four letter word in comparison! And don't get me started on Anna Nicole Smith's daughter Dannielynn. My friend Ei is fond of calling me "Dani-Lynn!" in a high pitched, screechy voice with a poor imitation of a Southern accent (she's from New York). Perhaps it is time to re-invent myself!