I made peace a long time ago with having a first and last name which could be interchangeable. While I have never regularly gone by “Joseph” for most of my life, a few years ago and in the professional arena, I started to try on my full, given first name as an alternate for “Joe”. I’ve always been “Joe” and have never been “Joey”, even when I was really young. I feel that “Joe” fits me: direct, monosyllabic, and easy to read and pronounce. The only times I can recall being called “Joseph” was either when I was in trouble, in which case my entire string of names would come out, or by my beloved grandmother. I am still sometimes addressed as “Dennis”, however, with a frequency that puzzles me.
I might have been in only the second or third grade when I learned that a comma separating two names in a list meant that the first name I read was that person’s surname. “Dennis, Joseph” was how my name was going to appear on the attendance sheet when the teacher took a roll call in the morning. How is it, then, that working adults of (presumably) at least average intelligence reading or responding to an e-mail from me mistake “Dennis” for my first name? I don’t find this offensive, but just baffling. There will also always be individuals who will deliberately try to irk me by calling me “Dennis” and acting like it’s oh, so confusing for them to figure out which name is my first and which is my last, to which I often choose simply not to engage. I’ve sometimes even signed off returned correspondence as “Dennis” in such cases almost as if to convey how unbothered I am by this, even if I’m secretly annoyed.
I was blessed with coming from a background that is not only multiracial, but multi-cultural, as my father was from the western African nation of Liberia. (My mother’s side of the family identifies as being primarily of German and Irish extraction.) Every time I look at my drivers’ license, I’m reminded of this fact by the representation of no less than six names on it, all of which were sourced from family. One of my middle names is purely Anglo in origin, but the other three are tribal names from my dad’s side which, while easy for me to spell and pronounce, are challenging for pretty much everyone else.
When I was growing up, one of my parents would give a presentation on Liberia in the gymnasium of my elementary school for “Culture Day”, dressing me in a country cloth or batik print dashiki and hat. At some point, I’d be asked to stand in front of the gym and pronounce my entire, legal name for the whole school (and it really was everybody, inclusive of all grades, teachers, and students). I became accustomed to people asking me to repeat my full name at least three or four times, with requests for me to go progressively slower with each repetition. Other students didn’t have to do this, and I suppose it was because of my father’s status as both an immigrant and a college professor that my family was given special attention that day.
The bus ride home that day would seem to be filled with echoes of butchered variations on what the other kids had thought my name sounded like, and also with snickering about slides they had just seen with “naked boobies” in them, as I sat on those hard, flat seats upholstered in industrial grade vinyl. As a kid, I had sadly started to become embarrassed by my connection to my father’s culture and had felt violated by being forcibly put on display in my school for the other kids (White, Black, Latinx, Asian, etc.) to pick apart, some of whom not only didn’t appreciate my string of west African tribal names, but found them funny sounding and sourced them for nicknames I didn’t like. I later grew to cherish every letter of each of my names as one significant part of my heritage and identity as a modern, authentic American.
Switching gears, let’s take a poll. The last time you saw an example of one of these specialty Italo-American Chryslers from the late 1980s, did the correct nomenclature of “Chrysler’s TC by Maserati” roll off your tongue? Be honest. Did you remember the apostrophe in “Chrysler’s”? It’s right there on the left portion of the trim panel on the trunk. It does seem like a lot to say for this little two-seater, and having said what I did about my six, legal names, I identify somewhat with both this car’s unusual naming as well as its cross-continental heritage. This grand tourer was the brainchild of Lee Iacocca, though, so you know it was going to be extra in every way, including its name. In fact, when you think about this car, can you imagine it with a model name that’s the equivalent of “Joe”, “Jane”, “Bob”, or even “Jennifer”? (All great names, by the way.)
There was really nothing else I felt like adding to the vast canons of factual information available on this storied model, which ultimately fell short of expectations. I’ll go on record as saying I like them, and I still have in storage somewhere the brochure I took of one from the North American International Auto Show in Detroit from 1987. Back then, I thought it was breathtaking, and to my eyes, it still looks good today. Make an effort to try to say its name correctly the next time you seen one. And whatever you do, do not call it a “LeBaron” – which I’m sure many people did and still do. I’m sure that like I’m accustomed to being addressed as “Dennis”, this owner of this TC has heard it all before.
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois.
Saturday, April 3, 2021.
School’s still in session for the year, so read up on the TC at CC both here and here.
I cringed at your story and felt bad that you had to go through that. Kids want to fit in and don’t want to be singled out, even for an ostensably positive reason – when the adults disappear, the cruelty from the other kids always starts.
Thanks for the reminder about the TC, which is the way I internally abbrevaite it when I see something about it. I agree it had promise and was actually quite a good-looking car for the times. IIRC, it simply cost too much for what it was.
“abbreviate”
The Lord Of The Flies wasn’t an exaggeration.
One of the greatest accomplishments in life is to raise children who are kind and decent to others.
Amen to that, Brother!
Thanks, Alan. The ribbing from the other kids about my names honestly wasn’t the worst thing in the world, and it wasn’t like something out of an ABC After School Special. At a certain point, I was conditioned and sort of ready for it when “Culture Day” was approaching.
Kids can be mean, yes. However, with the dawn of social media and reconnecting with people starting between 10 and 15 years ago, this was when I started to realize that I had been just as mean to other kids. It doesn’t make it right, but one huge positive about social media has been the ability to make amends and get to know and like people I knew from years ago, anew.
And yes – twice the price of a LeBaron was not a good thing for the TC.
The most surprising thing is that it wasn’t called “Lee’s Maserati TC (imported for Chrysler)”, perhaps that was in fact proposed, who knows.
These actually look quite good in butter yellow, this one anyway. It’s about the least sporting color imaginable and thus runs counter to any initial thought of connections to Maserati the brand, but I do like to think of these as the “Grand Baron”.
Kids can suck and adults can be surprisingly (?) immature too…
“These actually look quite good in butter yellow”
It seems like 80% of the ones I have ever seen have been this color, and the other 20% were red. Surely they came painted other colors?
You’re indicating you’ve seen at least five! That may be the record for any one individual…
There’s a good chance I’ve seen this car since the few TCs I’ve actually seen in person were this color, actually it may have been the same one on separate occasions.
“. . . adults can be surprisingly (?) immature too…”
Anyone who has been involved in kids’ sports can probably attest to that. I coached and umpired in my son’s Junior Baseball league for 8 years. The kids themselves were great, and a joy to work with. Unfortunately, there were too many 10-year-olds in adult bodies (aka parents) who felt the need to ruin it for everyone else.
Jim, I like “Lee’s Maserati TC (imported for Chrysler)” hahaha!!, and really like “Grand Baron”. I had written up a different TC I had spotted in Las Vegas back in 2016, and it was also this color yellow. I’m partial to this color combo with the tan leather, probably because that’s the same car that was featured in the dealer brochure.
Wow! A fascinating story! I read it through twice.
As always, Joseph, your writing is able to transport me to your feelings. All immigrants feel something different in them, and their children many times feel that way also. I can relate to that, as even though my skin color is the same as the one in my surroundings, my parents´´mother language was not, the culture was different, their holidays and religion were different, and their native scripture was right to left. Even though my Mom was born here in Uruguay in 1926, all my grandparents and my father came from Lithuania in the ´20s. I as born in 1965, when those “gringos” had already more or less become accostumed to local customs, but my older siblings, from the mid 50´s, still speak Yiddish fluently. We should all keep our traditions ans stick to who we are, and combine them to those of the nation that opened its arms to us. Long may you write!
Oh, sorry for the off topic comment. It’s just that sometimes the background of those who give us their stories is so charming that I leave happy and satisfied, forgetting all about the cars. And that’s good for me.
Rafael: I tremendously enjoy this blog because, unlike many other automotive enthusiast web logs and discussion boards out there, it is truly multicultural, ecumenical, and multiracial in composition and participation.
And that, in this day and age, is an astonishingly important thing.
It is. I quite going to TTAC because of the lack of this. I’m getting close to being here 10 years precisely because Paul and the other mods keep it civil here. One or two veteran posters persist in pushing their views, but I ignore them.
@NYCMT Agreed completely!
” You said you drove a Maserati but you picked me up in your Mums LeBarron or is it a K -car? ” said his date.
“You know my buddy’s date said the same thing when he picked her up in a Bi turbo. ” You said you drove a Maserati but you pick me up in a cruddy old 3 series BMW! “.
Maseratis darkest days…
Well said! I feel the same way.
But in addition to that, I feel like the personal stories have given me a better context for understanding cars I either have no personal experience with, or had no previous appreciation for. The great thing about cars, is that they are a touchstone for understanding the sociology, culture, economics, art, and industry of a particular time and place. They can speak to things both general, and deeply personal.
Thanks to all who keep this site running strong!
Nice to meet you, Rafael, from a 2nd generation Lit on my mother’s side, and a 3rd generation Scot/Irish mix on my dad’s. Grew up in the sixties in a suburb of Boston filled with Irish from Dorchester. No one in the neighborhood had a clue about our heritage. Much different time then, we had an Italian family next door, and we were good friends. It wasn’t until my teens when I realized why the rest of the neighborhood would pick on them.
Rafael, thank you so much for this, and I especially liked in your second-to-last sentence how you referenced keeping our traditions alive and combining them into our existence in the places where we live and in the countries to which be belong. That was a beautiful statement of an important core value that I also share with you.
Hmph. Name mangling. I got a call yesterday from a sales person who asked if this was (my surname). Not Mr. Surname, just surname. I said, no, this is Mr. Perrin. They seemed confused. At other times, my rather simple seemingly anglo surname is mangled as if it’s from some exotic country, often France so spoken with a French accent.
Another friend of mine is John Robert. He told me he constantly gets people mixing up his name, to the point of even being called “Rob”. Indeed people are careless about the one most important personal attribute in my mind.
Your experiences were saddening yet should not have been necessary. Thanks for sharing this piece Joe, or Joseph if you prefer.
Moparlee, your friend’s name brought to mind the singer Robert John (“Sad Eyes”, 1979). I wonder if the popularity of that song contributed to people confusing your friend’s first name for his last.
And, thanks. “Joe” is just fine. It really wasn’t an enduring thing with my name(s) and the other kids. It was probably more of how I felt singled out during those events at a time when I just wanted to be just one of the guys. I still hung out with my friends on the playground. No big deal.
Alan wrote, “I cringed at your story… when the adults disappear, the cruelty from the other kids always start.” Sad but true.
As for the TC, it was too much Chrysler and not enough Maserati.
I daresay it was a perfect 1:1 mix of the worst of American and Italian auto manufacture.
Life is full of stolen thunder. The TC would be much more highly regarded if the almost-identical looking LeBaron hadn’t come out first.
Similarly, the rear window treatment of the first-generation Saturn SL would have been much more innovative if it hadn’t been stolen by the four-door Oldsmobile Cutlass.
Very good point. I remember these cars and was confused as to why Chrysler made this and the Chrysler LeBaron.
I do prefer the details of the Maserati version. The porthole windows could have been left off though.
I’m sure they were nice cars. Someone I knew owned an earlier K-car convertible and it was very comfortable and docile. A real step up from other domestic four cylinders of the time which often were rough and agricultural.
Tom, I have always thought of the greenhouse of the SL being an almost line-perfect, 7:8-scale down of the Cutlass Supreme 4-door’s roofline. There are a few of these in my neighborhood, and I’m hoping to catch one with my camera.
And I still really like the J-Body LeBaron. A shame how that timing ended up working out, with the TC being introduced second instead of first.
Well, at least your name isn’t reversed. I had an engineering professor named Clotworthy Bernie III. The worst part was the III, since it meant that two generations had continued the cruel first name.
I must admit I am more likely to say “Hey, there’s one of those Chrysler Maserati things” which might have looked great on the badging but is incorrect.
I am amused at how much trouble the world seems to have with the name Doug. I regularly get email from other countries addressed to Dough, and have been addressed in person as Dough, Dog and Doog.
My response is that if I can remember my name and you can remember yours then we’re not doing too bad.
Doug is I think a hard name to figure out if English isn’t someone’s first language. Well, English in general is hard to figure out if it isn’t someone’s first language… 🙂 But natives have no excuse.
I get junk mail addressed to my Vietnamese (I think) alter ego, Nimh Lein. Not a bad pen name, actually…. “Travels along the banks of the Mekong” by Nimh Lein…
Perhaps it’s an aggressive spell check issue?
Ah, yes, the classic children’s book, “The Rats of Nimh Lein.”
Saw a TC about a month ago. Besides the normal scarcity, what really caught my eye was it didn’t have the porthole hardtop but was sporting the standard cloth convertible top.
Another wonderful tale, accompanying an … I’ll be charitable … interesting, car. I only have two names, though both fairly uncommon here in the US, as is the custom in my heritage.Though our culture does have nicknames and other appellations, which I guarded with my life because I got enough flack as kid with other kids mangling my real name, and not always unintentionally. I sure didn’t want them to hear the “cute” nicknames which I did my best to ignore from my parents and elderly ladies at church. Anyway, my last name is pretty simple, but shares a few letters with a common Anglo-American first name. And more than once in my life, usually at doctor’s offices, I’ve been called out by that name. So it seems that addressing people by their last name if it seems like a first name, even if incorrectly, is not uncommon.
As for the car, to be fair it’s more than interesting, it’s very nice looking, but not nearly enough excitement to warrant the name Maserati, let alone all the other stuff. In the late eighties I worked briefly for a startup whose founder drove one. Nice guy, very capable, but I hoped his automotive judgement didn’t extend to his business and technical savvy. One of the other lead guys drove an Alfa, but occasionally brought in his wife’s Cimarron. He made it clear that it was her car and her purchasing choice. At the time, both cars just seemed like typical Detroit missteps, so it never occurred to me to record them on film as future CC material.
Thanks Joe, for a great morning read.
Thanks, dman. You mentioned the Cimarron, which I now remember came in a buttery yellow very similar to the color of this TC. I wonder if one two-car garage ever contained one of each.
Ah yes, the immigrant kid with an odd name. How may variations on my last name did I endure in grade school? Nudermeyer, N—-meyer, Needlemeyer,…
My last name is German, and kind of hard to pronounce starting with an I, but I’m so very thankful I didn’t acquire my Grandmother’ maiden name, Schwichtenberg.
. . .at least you were grown by the time Animal House was released!
Yeah, but at least they couldn’t do much with your first name. I got it at both ends.
Oh, names. I grew up with an Irish last name in a heavily German city. Every year when the roll was first called in grade school the teacher had trouble with it. I now live in a city with a large Irish population and nobody has trouble with it at all.
I always felt bad for those with a last name that sounded like a first name. It is probably good I didn’t have that, I might have succumbed to the temptation to give my children last names as first names, just to mess with everyone. Can you imagine the 3 Dennis brothers being given first names of Smith, Jones and Johnson?
And you nailed me – had you bet me over this car’s name you would have won a little money. I had never noticed the apostrophe. Only the catastrophe. 🙂
>>[ A P P L A U S E ]<<
+1
“I always felt bad for those with a last name that sounded like a first name.”
Around here you’d be that kid. Our children know two kids whose first name is Cavanaugh but none with it as their last.
That’s a common phenomena here too. The last shall be first.
JP, you bring up something else I have thought about. Without attaching a value judgement to such a scenario, I have wondered how measurably different my life would have been if I would have been given one of my middle names as my first name. Things I’m sure my parents considered before they signed the paperwork at the hospital.
Joseph, I’ve accidentally called you Dennis on here, much to my eternal chagrin.
The TC reminds me of Paul’s Deadly Sin pic of the Buick Skylark next to the 19986 downsized Riviera. Sure, there are a lot of details that are finer on the more expensive car, but from 20 feet can you tell the difference?
Chris, it’s not a huge deal, and it does happen accidentally! And I seem to remember you apologized right afterward before I even saw your original comment.
I’ll say this: I usually like addressing people by name, in any context, versus just typing something. That gets points that you tried! I feel like calling someone by their name is a form of recognizing that they’re an actual person.
That comparison shot between the Riviera and the Somerset / Skylark had me frozen on it for probably a good two or three minutes. Wow. To the credit of the TC and J-Body LeBaron, though, they were both terrific looking cars.
(I actually thought the Buick N-Bodies looked good for compact coupes of the day.)
Ohh names. My first name is extremely common, but almost always abbreviated in social interactions. Well, my legal name is the abbreviated version (Chris). Every time I hand the renewal form to the DMV clerk I’m immediately confronted with “it has to be your legal name”. It’s gotten gratingly annoying as I age. Many years ago a woman I went to school with, all the way thru HS senior year, was hired on in our company as management, same level position I held. She and I most definitely knew each other from school, as we didn’t exactly mesh well back then. Long story short, at a management meeting with all of our peers and superiors, she refers to me by the “formal” version of my “informal” name. This is the first time ever, and all previous communications she used my name proper. Everybody looks around like “what?” as I decide to let it slide because it already got awkward. Then she does it a second time. Nope. “I’d appreciate it if you refer to me by name, thank you”. She tries to play dumb. “what do you mean” type thing because she wants me to look petty, and trying to undermine my point. “X, we went to school together and have known each other for over 25 years. You know what my name is”. Sometimes when life tries a lemon at your head, you catch it and stop it back down to the ground. She didn’t last very long.
Yeah… Like what seems to be the case in the instance you described, I think I’m pretty adept at determining intent when it comes to how I’m addressed. I think it’s important to make those kinds of corrections sooner than later.
And then, even outside of situations like that, I can recall times when I had been mispronouncing someone’s name for a long time before someone else (not that person) corrected me. So, I stood there with egg on my face because my original person hadn’t wanted to hurt my feelings with a correction! It’s all good.
But I can usually tell when someone’s deliberately being a jerk. And I’m from Flint, so you know I’m direct.
Many, many moons ago I had a co-worker whose name was Jos Francissen. At some point, he introduced himself to a new client, while mentioning only his last name, “Francissen”.
A week later, the same man called the office, asking for Mr. Sissen.
(a little knowledge of the Dutch language does help, I fully admit)
Thanks for the post, Joe. It’s always interesting to learn about your life.
Nice post, Joe and you’re right – getting someone’s name correct and not messing about with it is a basic courtesy. Hopefully, we at CC do that.
Many years ago, our business was dealing with a less than fully satisfied customer named Haydn Martin.
He came for a peace meeting and our MD continually, whilst trying to make peace, referred to him as “Martin”.
My name’s OK, until a “D” gets put between the G and E. It’s not unusual or difficult to spell, or so you’d think.
Last time I saw one of these it was in the in the new car dealer’s showroom. Could have been the exact car. Same color, same wheels. Probably not since I was back in New York by that time. Beautiful leather. Buttery soft. The dealer is gone now too.
I grew up being constantly teased about my name. My sin…no middle name.
It was tradition in my dad’s family to have no middle name. I constantly got bugged that it was just weird and I didn’t want to say it to being outright called a liar to my face.
I complained to my Dad once and he wrote William X Shields with the comment that I now had a middle name shut up about it.
Maybe you could do a variation on that Joe with people that constantly mix your name up.
Start referring to yourself as J.(tribal name) Dennis. pick the one that is the hardest to say/write.
A couple rounds of that and I bet they start remembering Joseph Dennis in a hurray!
My last name inexplicably confounded many teachers growing up, Polster, pronounced just like pollster, but at least half would say for first attendance every year with a soft o – “Matthew Pahlster? – Think only my history teachers consistently got it right and naturally of course pointed it out come election time – “So who do you think is going to win, Matt”, that sure didn’t get old! I’m really bad at remembering names though, if I screw up a name it’s never with malice, I beat myself up inside if I unintentionally flip a first and last name around.
As for Chrysler’s TC my Maserati, well, I do have a natural aversion to pomp, especially so when unmerited as a K car with a nice interior should command. Calling it Maserati TC or Chrysler Maserati or whatever diminishes the intent is as comedic as pronouncing Bucket as Bucket to Hyacinth Bucket(It’s pronounced Bouquet!) on Keeping up Appearances. The car itself really isn’t offensive, stubby as a 2 seater tends to be but it’s a fairly clean looking car and the interior really is to die for. The top is my least favorite part.
Joseph, thanks for the story. There’s just a slight situation with your punctuation. You ask us if we can see the comma in the ‘Chrysler’s’ script, when what you’re describing is an apostrophe. If it were a comma, it would look like this: ‘Chrysler,s’ – right? Don’t worry,we all do that – it was right on the tip of your tongue, I know.
Thank you for pointing this out. This is the kind of thing that would drive me nuts months later after I re-read this essay and discovered the error. I’ve fixed it.
Speaking of being made fun of because of your name, I know a guy that I’ll call Mary. That’s not his real name but his real name is just as feminine as Mary. He has always been a big easy going guy but was constantly teased because of his name. Being easy going he let a lot of the teasing roll off of his back. When he was a kid, most kids would tease him until they figured out that it didn’t really bother him, even though it did but he didn’t show it. Well being a big easy going guy, there would always be some little piss ant who would try to make a name for himself buy relentlessly teasing a guy twice his size. Everyone has a breaking point and these little piss ants had a way of finding Mary’s. He sent several of them home beaten, bashed, bruised and bleeding. His parting words were always the same, “Make sure you tell your father that a boy named “Mary” did that to you!”
Joe, thank you. Like others, this is relatable, but for slightly different reasons.
There are no superfluous letters in my last name. People are (generally) able to pronounce it. However, at various places seeking names, it has gotten to the point where I do not state my last name – I simply spell it. If I say it ahead of time all sorts of extra letters get added despite my spelling it. In kindergarten, I got in trouble when I had to trace my last name as I didn’t trace the “c”. In my un-charming manner, I told the teacher until I had a “c” in my last name I would not be tracing any “c”.
My wife’s name is Marie. That must be a toughie as invariably people call her “Mary”. When some solicitor calls and asks for “Mary Shafer”, I tell them there is no Mary here, or say that is my grandmother who is 100 and not here, and hang up.
Thus I really work to get people’s names correct.
Jason, you / this reminded me of the days before caller ID, and almost instantaneously recognizing a telemarketer if they asked, “May I speak to ‘Dennis’?” Click.
Drove and detailed a shit ton of these when they came off the boat at World Cars in Jacksonville, Fl. Ports. Man, they were gorgeous! Thanks for the memory!