A name that’s hard to spell

I first heard the song as I was driving to or from no place important. When Mike Doughty sang, “I went to school with 27 Jennifers, 16 Jens, 10 Jennys,” I felt a connection, like two Lego blocks snapping together, because I too went to school with at least 27 Jennifers, 16 Jens, 10 Jennys. In my birth year of 1980, the most popular girl’s name in America was “Jennifer.” You couldn’t avoid a Jennifer without bumping into a Sara(h) or an Amanda first.

This was a problem because for the better half of the 80′s I went by the nickname “Jenny” (or Jenny Sue if you went far enough south). There was always another Jenny in the class. There are few things that can make you feel less like the special little snowflake you are than to sit in a classroom with three other girls who have the same name as you. To differentiate between us, teachers and classmates would use our last initials, so I became Jenny F.

Ugh.

Jenny EFF. It’s so harsh. Not cute [...]

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