The Icelandic connection - 01.09.2010, Page 28

78
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
Vol. 63 #2
Good-bye to Name Games
by Gudrun Gail Helgason
“What is your name?”
For most people, this is a straightfor-
ward question. For me, thanks to my
Icelandic heritage, it never has been. All
too often my name has been my torment
and my frustration—as well as my dis-
tinction and my pride.
My parents christened me Gudrun
Gail Helgason at my birth in Foam Lake,
Saskatchewan. Gudrun was a nod to the
Icelandic heritage of both my first-gener-
ation Canadian parents. Gail might have
been influenced by the popularity of the
American actress Gail Storm. (Storm’s
real name, incidentally, was Josephine
Owaissa Cottle). Or maybe my parents
just liked the short and snappy sound.
My name challenges might have
ended there, except for two other choices
my parents made: they decided that my
first name would be Gudrun, but I would
be called by my second name, Gail.
My father’s preference was to call
me Gudrun. My mother vetoed this idea,
sensibly arguing that such a name could
create difficulties for a little girl sur-
rounded by Shirleys, Judys and Debbies.
In choosing to keep Gudrun as my
first name, my parents followed a family
tradition. My father, mother and sister
were all called by their second names.
The deciding factor, however, might
have been that “Gudrun Gail” simply
sounded more euphonic than “Gail
Gudrun.”
Thus began a life of petty inconve-
niences and stuttering starts to new
endeavors. Three other Gudrun
Helgasons lived in our town, including
my mother, my aunt and one cousin.
Endless letters needed to be re-addressed;
endless phone calls needed to be redirect-
ed.
As I progressed along to university in
Saskatoon, I became increasingly self-
conscious about the wedge my first name
created between my classmates and me. 1
cringed as professors stumbled over the
pronunciation of my first name on the
official rosters at the start of each term. I
learned to inform them quickly to “call
me Gail.” I blushed as I discovered a fic-
tional “Gudrun” for the first time in uni-
versity English classes (albeit a German
one), in D.H. Lawrence’s Women in
Love.
Despite these mild embarrassments,
it did not once occur to me in my youth—
as it would later—to give my second
name as my first name when asked on
official forms.
A fervent desire to follow the rules
was partly at work, but another dynamic
was in play. Yes, Gudrun was an unusual
name outside our east-central
Saskatchewan town or the neighboring
communities of Leslie, Elfros and
Wynyard. Yes, Gudrun made a particular-
ly poor transition into English, with that
awkward translated “d” (like a “th” I
would insist to friends, even as their
attempts exasperated me).
Yet Gudrun was my first name and I
was never ashamed of it, rough and inel-
egant as it might sound in English. I was
always aware that things could have been
worse. (I could, for example, have been
named Helga Helgason.)
In my early twenties I left
Saskatchewan for Ontario and then