My Name

There are certain things that I have started to take for granted living in Israel: namely, my name. Growing up in the States with the name Leora was not always easy. Boys never remembered it and many times people would hear it once and then repeat it back with a variation, i.e. Lenora, Lena, Latoya, Laurie. On my first day on the job at the ADL in Boston, I met the receptionist as I walk in. He informed me that there was a typo on the new phone extension list that went around and that my name was listed as Lenora. So not only did I have to learn all of their names, I had to convince them that my name was not Lenora.

When I would make a phone call and someone asked me my name, I would always answer “Leora, spelled L e o r a.” This threw people off even more. Since I spelled it they were afraid to pronounce it incorrectly so they would try to speak to me without having to use it or they refered to me as honey or doll.

In Israel the only confusion with my name is whether it is pronounced Liora or Lior. On occasion I will call a business and hear the receptionist answer “Hello this is Leora,” to which I reply “Hello Leora, this is Leora.” I realize that anyone with a common American name like Sarah or Michael does not find this situation very amusing, but it makes me smile.

While there is definitely something to be said for having a unique name that makes you stand apart from the rest, it is comforting to move to a new country and not have a name that screams “HERE IS AN AMERICAN.”

Yesterday I received a courtesy call on my US number. The conversation went as follows:

“Hello may I speak to Lenora Fischer?”
“This is Leora”
Pause……
“Umm, Hello Ms. Fischer, I am calling from……”

As I hung up the phone I chuckled. It has been a while since someone had difficulty with my name and I forgot what it was like.

Unique or commonplace, I am very happy with my name. Not only do I like that it has a meaning behind it, but I like the fact that it is Israeli. According to the book Freakanomics, Israeli names are becoming more popular among Americans, especially those of high socioeconomic standings.

People have asked if having an Israeli name was at all connected to my aliyah. While I do not believe that having an Israeli name made me destined to move to Israel, I do believe that people connect to their names and each name factors into a person’s overall identity.