Let us suppose you like your first name, your “given” name.

It’s yours. You respond to it.

You feel good when you hear it, except maybe when a parent says “Bernard Joseph Smith, you’re going to be sorry…!” for whatever you just did.

Even then you might not mind the tone so much if your first name is pronounced correctly. In my experience, you can count on parents getting it right.

Also in my experience, most people get Bernard wrong when talking to me, at least for the first time. They default to the common U.S. pronunciation, as if we’d all been named for a legendary breed of dog that rescues people in the Alps.

Some members of my extended family, and maybe your own, can attest to how important it is to at least attempt to pronounce names correctly. It’s a matter of courtesy and respect.

A tiny, tiny percentage of people who see my full first name in writing ask how to pronounce it. I smile, pronounce it for them, and thank them profusely for asking.

It’s understandable, of course. There is more than one way to pronounce many names. You can’t tell from the spelling if Bernard is BER-nerd or ber-NARD, but to me they are quite different. One is mine, the other is not.

If you don’t know for sure how to say someone’s name, just ask.

B.J.

P.S. A man of many names and nicknames, I’ve been known to some as B.J. since U.S. Navy bootcamp in 1973 when one of our first chores was stenciling last name and initials on every shred of government-issued clothing, down to and including the white boxer shorts. Recruits on laundry detail would yell out names and initials so you’d get the right skivvies back.