My Father's Real Name

Choosing baby names was easy for my parents’ generation. The first boy or girl was named after a dead grand or great grandparent. It was bad luck to name a child after a living member of the direct line. I think the bad luck part was made up to avoid nicknames. We already had too many nicknames in the family as it was. When my first husband and I discovered we were about to launch a male child into this world, I thought it would be generous of me to name him after a dead someone in my husband’s family. All the men on his side were either John, Charles, Richard, or Lafe. There had been a Lafe in his grandmother’s family since about 1777, when an ancestor watched the Marquis de La Fayette march his French troops through town. The very next male offspring was named LaFayette in honor of the event, and on it went but, you know, nicknames. Our son would be Lafe because I knew John, Charles, and Richard were still alive. When I told my Grandmother in-law about this, she said don’t bother; we already have one. This left me with my side of the family. We would honor my deceased father by naming his grandson Bernard, thus ruining his childhood because the closest thing to Bernie his classmates could remember was Fire. The day I brought Bernie home, I started calling him Benny or Benji by mistake. All of a sudden, I liked Benjamin better than Bernard but my husband refused my request to have his son’s name officially changed. Bernard was on the Birth Certificate and that was that. Around the time Bernie was two or three, Cabbage Patch dolls were the rage. He really wanted one for Christmas. I couldn’t afford a real one, nor did I want to punch out any of the ladies at the Mall who were fighting over the last dolls in stock. Miraculously, I happened to drive past a roadside Cabbage Patch knock-off stand. They included a birth certificate form, just like real Cabbage Patch dolls. My son never knew the difference. He’s probably reading this now and saying, “What? You lied to me?” I named the doll Benjamin. Bernie nicknamed him Benji. Bernie loved Benji. He used to flip him in circles, like a gymnast. Whenever he’d get too enthusiastic and smash the doll’s head against his own, he’d say “Benji is a strong boy.” (Boys don’t play dolls the way girls do.) Benji bit the dust after about a year of roughhousing and we all forgot about him until four years ago when I found out my father’s name was not actually Bernard. According to the US Census Bureau, his name was Benjamin. Adding insult to injury, I learned his last name was not actually Mattison. It was Matisowitz. Somewhere between birth and the Army, Benjamin Matisowitz became Bernard Mattison. He’d neglected to mention this to us. It may not have been his fault. It’s possible when someone came knocking on the apartment door in the Bronx in 1910, my grandmother may have become so frightened she was reduced to speaking gibberish. She may have meant Bernard but it came out sounding like Benjamin. I think this is likely because that same Census said she had a daughter named Pauline, and there was no way in 1910 a Yiddish speaking Hungarian was going to come up with a name like Pauline on her own. My sister and I used to try to figure out where Mattison came from. One theory was the Matson shipping line. Maybe Grandpa saw it on a ship at Ellis Island and the clerk wrote down Mattison in error, just like they did with Paul’s cousin Sean Ferguson. Sean Ferguson’s grandfather was in line at Ellis Island, waiting to say his Russian name in English, which was very important because if you couldn’t even say your name in English, sometimes you got put on a boat heading back to Siberia. This pressure rattled Grandpa and when it was his turn to speak, he scratched his head and said “Sheyn fergessen” which, in Yiddish, means I already forgot. This was translated into the obvious Sean Ferguson, and that’s why Paul has Irish relatives. You know, I bought this story hook, line, and sinker when Paul told me, but I’m wiser now. It’s a classic comedy bit, probably heard at resorts in the Catskills. On the other hand, it could be true. You never know. Stranger things have happened. Such as finding out your father’s name was not what you thought it was.