I did this earlier today and the anxiety rash is still fresh.
I work in healthcare and it's in an impoverished part of town in Florida....so we get some interesting names and people. Mind you, my first name is very VERY strange by any typical standards thanks to my super traditional ethnic parents so I understand the struggle from a personal perspective. I do pediatric acute care and we see a lot of variants of names for little kids that were clearly taken from a city/town/location/car/famous individual but altered to make it unique. I've seen variations of Mercedes and Bentley I could have never been creative enough to come up with myself. When it comes to places: brooklynn, londyn, A'sia, Cuba, etc. and contrary to popular belief this is not just one kind of demographic doing this with their kids. I think it's more a southern thing than a race thing. Anyway, I've worked here long enough that I know the drill - parents calls about a kid, take down information, if its a weird name have them spell it out. Sometimes I'm the only one fielding phone calls and we have 3 or 4 lines lit at once - so I really need to do things as quickly and as efficiently as possible so everyone is reached in adequate time. Here's where I fuck up.
Had a patient call and say her child's name is Malaysia. I've seen MANY variants on this name, so for accuracy/time's sake I ask her if it's spelled like the country's name. ....Mom had no idea what I was talking about. I tried to brush by it and just spell it out rather than ask that question again. Honestly, all I really needed was an accurate spelling. I didn't realize at the time mom had just been floored by my meant-to-be harmless question.
"What in the hell you mean like the country?" "Ma'am, I apologize, I just needed the spelling of your child's name for medical record purposes. M-A-L-A-Y-S-I-A is correct?" "Hold the f- up. You said COUNTRY. You tellin' me there's a country named after my child?" "No ma'am. Well, yes ma'am. But the country I think came first. It's been around a while, it's in Asia. What's her date of birth?" "You tryna' make fun now? You think you so smart and I'm so dumb that you can say something like that about my child's name and I won't catch it?" "No ma'am! I just am trying to get you into triage quickly ma'am. I'm sorry. I didn't mean any offense. I just used the country for reference. I apologize." (I start to clam up realizing this is devolving from her raised tone of voice.) "Fuck you and your lyin' ass talking to me like I don't fucking know countries and shit, that's some fucked up dumb shit, you RACIST, you trying to JUDGE, and think I won't catch it, no, nuh uh, I WANT TO SPEAK TO YOUR SUPERVISOR RIGHT THIS SECOND."
Anyway so now I have to do sensitivity training because I'm an asshole and she didn't know Malaysia was a country and not just her baby daddy's favorite cousin's name.
Edit: I've heard ghastly stories about things people say in healthcare settings, and just ignorance in general from all levels, professions, and demographics of people coming through. This is by far my worst/weirdest yet.
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