Talke Talks – The Importance of Being Yana

Howdy from Texas, dear readers,
As is well known, you always want what you don’t have, and the majority of my life instead of my complicated Russian last name I wanted one that I didn’t need to spell constantly. In my case, the consequences of German immigration were the removal of the female “a” at the end of my surname, and with it my masculinization, and that I would starve the rest of my life in Germany in confused faces, while I dictated the “Y” in my name, which was chosen by a translator for the letter “ы” that was not existing in German. Russian -speaking leaders think that the “ы” corresponds to the German “i” in “table”, but that is an understatement.

German feminists get double names when they marry what I mostly support, but in cases like Göring-Eckardt would rather leave. I, on the other hand, sprinted to the citizens’ office immediately after my wedding and before the honeymoon to switch to my new, short, sexless, mega slide names. I was finally able to go through as a locals, without “ы” and “y”! No matter what the young generation of migration stolz fuses, for me you made it in Germany if you no longer have to spell on the phone with the medical assistant.

But the luck of integration did not last long. After just one year of potato talk, the USA went from my dear short, ordinary North German surname a surprised “talk-Tolki?”. It is never even recited, but always twice and always in this order. Now at least I know what it feels like to lead a feminist double name. In addition, the title of this column was created.

Another false discussion bothered me far more – one that was known to me from earlier stays in the USA, but whose negative influence on my psyche I underestimated: From now on I was called “Dschäna”! Rarely followed by the demand “Jay-na?” That my rather short, ordinary Eastern European first name is so hazardous and would never be really pronounced by friends who know me for years, shocked me. “Like a double-L in Spanish,” I explain to my Mexican friends who no longer say “Dschäna”, but slowly, carefully and somehow quietly “Dschana”. That even my yoga teacher, who is called the same as I and also comes out of the Eastern Bloc, still says Dschäna to me, borders on migrant betrayal. In my everyday life I have to spell both names: “Talk with an› e ‹at the end« and »Yana with a› J ‹« and look into confused faces.

My fate should still turn to the better: I recently became an American citizen. Not without any problems (they may remember delays, travel and power outages), but with the possibility of officially changing my name into the correct and logical letter of my yoga teacher Yana (only for the USA, of course, in the German passport remains »J«). One last time I was reminded of how Passé Jana is. The officer who carried out my citizenship test was immediately annoyed when he called me up. “Dschäna, I heard the name for the last time when I was divorced!” He greeted me. “That’s why I change him to Yana,” I joked. The man did not smiled back, but after the second test question (“What is the capital of the USA?”) He started again: “I thought I was going to be, but then she called me out of nowhere, and so: ‘Where did you get my number from?’

Although I will spend the next few weeks to change my banking and insured cards to »Y«, I look forward to not having to spell as much. However, the consequence of the US immigration is that I have been removed-Yana are only called Russians in the United States. “Я”, this is both the first letter of my first name in Russian and the word “I”. The main thing is that no longer “”.