Hazards of having UNCOMMON LETTERS in your Name

When I was born, my Parents came up with a very unique and beautiful name by which I would be known ever after. I was named “Girija”. I guess, they never thought how exceptionally unique it would be at the global level :-).

Literally translated, 'Girija' means Mountain Born. 'Girija’ is a name of one form of the feminine aspect of God as understood by the Hindu religion, namely the goddess Parvati, the wife of Lord Siva. She is also referred to (in Sanskrit) as 'parvatha raja tanaya', meaning the daughter of the King of the Mountains, as she was born to King Himalaya. (Btw , I'm the daughter of King Vishnu and Queen Vijaya (my parents :-) )
Also, in Hindi, the national language of my country India “Girija Ghar” means “A Church”.

Now coming back to the actual topic, the hazardous letters in my name happens to be “J”. Or rather it’s the combination or G, R & J .
I can understand if a non-Indian finds it difficult to pronounce my name, but most of my fellow countrymen also end up pronouncing it incorrectly :-( .
It’s so simple “GI - RI - JA”
So here I am quoting all possible ways that people pronounce (rather manipulate) my name “GIRIJA” and at times even give up the effort of pronouncing it.

Girja : This happens to be people’s favourite. None of the letters in my name are silent ,still everyone ends up eating "A" .
(In Hindi language Girja means “Fall down”:-( )

One of my school teachers used to almost hizzzz while calling me: “Girzza” .She ate up the “I” and then messed up “J” with “ZZ”. And trust me; I despised her every time she called my name.

My two cute little nieces have their own style of calling me .The elder one used to call me “Girisha” when she was 2-3 years old. The younger one who is 2.5 years old calls me “Gija”
:-) .(And I luv their style.)

However, one of colleagues also calls me “Gija”. Actually, he says "Girija" so fast that it sounds like “Gija”.

Malaysian and Singaporean Colleagues from my ex-company Soundbuzz used to call me “Geeeja”.
May be that’s the Asia pacific style of pronouncing my name :).

Here’s one incident, when I was in London at the clients office. On the eve of Christmas, our client had organized “Secret Santa”. Secret Santa is basically a fun game wherein you pick up a cheet with someone’s name & get a gift for that person. There was this babe from the client side who was giving away the gifts. (Though it was Secret Santa, I knew which gift belonged to me, and who had got it for me). She picked up the gift that belonged to me, made an attempt to read out my name, made a weird face (as if that was the toughest tongue twister that she had ever encountered) and kept it back. She gave away some more of the gifts, then again picked up the one that belonged to me and tried again to read out my name, and again kept it back. Finally, there were just 3-4 gifts left. She again picked up my gift , called one of her colleague’s and asked him to read it out .He almost put up a point blank expression on his face , as if that was the most toughest word that he had ever encountered in his whole life . For no reason, I was feeling embarrassed and frustrated. However, just to make their task easier, I walked up to them & told “That’s me.”

There’s this very recent incident wherein one of our European clientele spelt my name as “Ginija”.And, I wonder if she has been referring to me as “Gini pig” :-( (guinea pig).

However, Now I have become resilient to the way people call me :-).Thankfully, my colleagues have cut short my name to “Giri” and made it easier for them.