People are jealous of my name

Here's a pic of my uniform, odd enough I cannot copy and paste the link, but you can see it by adding "dot and com" between tinypic and the firrst slash!
it.tinypic/r/2r712lh/9

Evangeline, how do you get from "my name had to be shortened to fit on my uniform" to "people are jealous of my name"? Who's jealous? I am baffled. And why does it matter so much to you?

It's a mystery to me that your concentration and confidence went with your name.

evangeline85 wrote: What can I do to get through this?

First, reconsider your belief that your name was shortened out of jealousy that your name was "long" and "elegant". That is what you want to believe.

Have you considered that at some point it is not the fact a name is "elegant" rather that the name is simply too long to fit on a particular logo or design?

When I travel to South America, people call me Ricardo. But, my name is so much more elegant as Richard. Richard means "King" it means "powerful ruler". Instead, some call me Rick, Richie or Dick. Are they jealous of my name Richard, so they modify it to make me feel bad? No. That would be an ignorant belief on my part to think people are changing my name because they are jealous of how elegant Richard is.

When I interact with people from China, their names are modified to Julia or Sophia and my name is 理查德. Why did they change their names, why do they modify mine? Out of envy, jealousy or because maybe, just maybe it has nothing to do with how elegant a name might be, rather it is simply common sense.

Eleanor is 7 letters, yours is 10. At what point do you think it okay to modify a label on a shirt so as to be able to fit the name? 11, 12, 13 letters? You are saying this is the first time in your entire life you have ever had an issue with your name being a bit too long to fit on a label?

And then there is the issue of Lina is simply easier for kids to pronounce or remember or communicate back and forth. I know a dentist in Ecuador that specializes in kids. She wanted to keep advertising her name as Dr. Miriam Rosario Monterroza. Her close friends called her "Moly", but she felt it inappropriate for her professional business to be referred to as Moly as she is a doctor, a dentist. It took a lot of convincing that kids, children, her patients would respond so much better to calling her Dr. Moly.

The bottom line. You are making a big deal out of nothing. Your name is not who you are. You should be focused on the children, not the label on your shirt.

If you really want, you can go to the camp director and ask who made the shirts. Then you can ask the camp director the reason they shortened your name. I guarantee the camp director will not say they shortened your name out of jealousy that your name was elegant. They will tell you they shortened your name, because kids respond to shorter names better and that your full name was difficult to fit on this particular label.

First of all thanks for your answers. I think some people are jealous of my name because of what they say since I've got my uniform changed.
Some of them, Eleanor for example, laughed and told me she was really surprised that my long name was replaced with Lina. She said "wow, dear Evangeline, your beautiful name went from 10 to 4 letters! What a strike ahah!".

I'm really tied to my name because I was grown in a catholic family, who died very young. I've not told them because I'm sky and I really don't think they are interested in my story. In the last years I usually wore uniform with my name and yes this is the first time I see it cut down to a few letters.

I don't understand why they first provided to us uniforms with my name, then decided to shorten some names, and not all, which were too long according to them.
Now my sweatshirt is still with Evangeline printed on it while my tshirts have been all changed to Lina. So I wear the hoodie every time I can on my tshirt. Then I find myself being the only one with a sweatshirt and my colleagues start joking saying that we're in summer and that I should shed off that hoodie. Eleanor told me "You're making us feeling hot with that sweashirt on, Evangeline, take it off! Take it off!". They were right, I took it off and left with my shirt. And she said "Ahah, good morning Lina".

She also said that my sweatshirt, as well those from other who had their names changed to a nick, will be soon replaced with a new one with Lina, so I should be prepared to say goodbye to my name.
Today Eleanor was going around so proud to be one of the few girls with her name on the uniform and her name was one of the longest and most serious left in our group. I'm not telling this, other entartainers who got their names replaced said "Why not call her Nora?". She was really embarassed and said that's not a good idea but one of the leaders, Emma, was there and said that her uniform is going to be changed soon from Eleanor to Nora.
She insisted on change their minds by saying that her name is long but not so much long and that there is no good reason to change her shirts and sweatshirts.
As for my Evangeline I'm planning to ask the directors to keep my swearshirt and get back my tshirt with my original name, but I'm still wondering whether or not it's a good idea at the moment!

Just in case you've not seen how our uniforms are made, I think that the tshirts have room for quite long names. Besides "Lina", there should be Evangeline without any problems. It's an aesthetical choice, I guess but I don't like it.

Now Eleanor was so sad..maybe she now understands what happens when you got your name torn to a few letters on the clothes you have to wear 8 hours a day when working with many other people. It seems that's matter of time and her name will be stripped down to a few letters finally! She said that when it happens she will use acetone on the first 6 letters on my sweatshirt to remove the protective layer above the printed ink of my name Evangeline so that it comes off the first time I wash the only sweathirt with my name still on, since I definitely contributed to shorten her as well.

evangeline85 wrote: I don't understand why they first provided to us uniforms with my name, then decided to shorten some names, and not all, which were too long according to them.

Because some names were too long. That is why.

Evangeline, how old are you and the other entertainers at this children's camp?

I'm 31. A few entertainers are younger than me, aging between 20 and 25 I guess, but most of us is 30-35 years old.

Meanwhile I asked a girl of the staff, whose mother is a dry cleaner, if Eleanor could really delete the first part of my name on my sweatshirt by using acetone only. She said that the writing Evangeline, like all other names, is directly printed with ink on the sweatshirt, which is color fast and extremely durable. They chose this clothing which is designed to resist in case children drops colors, toys or other things over our sweatshirts and tees. Anyway she admitted that if someone rubs with acetone against the first letters of my name, the protective layer comes off in seconds and a few drops of water would delete "Evange", and "line" would become my new nick.
So she advised me to wear my sweatshirt at job, if I really want to try to keep my name, otherwise it could be erased in a moment if someone grabs my sweatshirt left around.
Unless of course they decide to ask my hoodie back and replace with a new one. Anyway she thinks I should be prepared to say goodbye to my name, since it's only printed on my single sweatshirt at this point.

Evangeline, I recommend you seek a professional therapist. You need to gain some perspective of what issues in life are important verses what issues should be of little or no concern. Maybe other members of this forum can help you in making this distinction.

Best of luck to you.

I'm grateful to your advice but I need to share with you what happened a few hours ago.
My name, Evangeline, is gone from my sweatshirt. It's gone forever and I now feel so unconfortable with my nicks.

It was incredible, but it happened in the end. Following the advise given by that girl of the staff I wore my sweatshirt every time I could keep it on. Then a running game had to be held with children along with other huge activities, so I tied my sweatshirt around my waist until I had to leave it on a chair since it was hampering my job swinging from my back. I stayed away for half an hour or so, when I came back I saw Eleanor and a few other girls laughing around the chair I left my sweatshirt on before.
I asked them what they did and they said "Nothing in particular, Lina!" and went on laughing. It was no longer hot as during the games so I put back on my sweatshirt and I was happy to see my name again. Apparently nothing had been done to my hoodie. But a few minutes later they took a picture of my sweatshirt. I did not understand why! Then one of them daubed a slightly wet towel on the first two letters of my name, which suddenly faded away, and they said "Good morning Angeline!". They did the same for another two letters "Good moring Geline" and another two "Good morning Line, you're online!".
I was shocked to see that I towel rubbed against my sweatshirt had made those letters to come off.
Everything was last of the first part of my name were a few drops of green ink which I could see on the towel they used to do the trick.

They explained that while I was away they saw my sweatshirt on that chair. Eleanor had rubbed with acetone for nails , she said that in a first moment the writing seemed to be more resistant than it was expected to be. probably because the sweatshirt is quite thick and fabrics had a very durable protective layer. They told me that after rubbing harder and harder for a few minutes the fabric was quite rough anyway: it was because they finally managed to tear apart the protective layer over the ink of the first six letters of Evangeline, which were now exposed as fresh ink. I did not realized that, but I understood when I saw my name stripped down so quickly. All the technology designed to protect the ink and make the sweatshirt so durable was ripped apart by acetone.
Now I cannot say if I'm more unconfortable with Line or Lina as a nick

We should all have such terrible problems. I suggest you join in the laughter, but I have a feeling you can't see the joke. It's on you, Evangeline.

i'm not sure people are jealous or knee-jerk reacting against a religious name...

but it still feels like bullying behaviour to me..

First of all, I want to say that it's not cool of people to diminish your feelings, and telling you to ignore them or stop being so sensitive isn't good advice. It's not right or wrong to be sensitive any more than it is right or wrong to be blunt or brusque; people are just built differently, and each personality type has its own benefits and drawbacks. Feelings aren't right or wrong either, and they're analogous to the gas light coming on in your car. Ignoring the gas light won't stop you from running out of gas any more than ignoring your feelings will get you out of your current situation. Your name is a memento of your family and tied to your self-identity, so it's understandable that you were unhappy with it being shortened unilaterally without consulting you. Burying or denying your feelings will just create a new set of problems that you will spend time and money unraveling later.

So where do you go from here? If you want to stop the coworkers from harassing you, you will need to completely ignore them from now on. People tease/harass because it gets a reaction out of their targets, so if you stop reacting to them they will stop as well. You might also ask the management to let you select a shortened name of your own choosing, like Eve or Eva. That would allow you to retain a Biblically-relevant name while adhering to the name policy. I hope this helps, and if you would like to talk privately my gmail address is songofselene.

Selenara wrote:First of all, I want to say that it's not cool of people to diminish your feelings, and telling you to ignore them or stop being so sensitive isn't good advice.

IMO it is not cool to enable people. It may make the person giving advice feel good, but it plays into a horrible narrative of pretending all feelings are to be legitimized. The person crying because their ice cream fell off the cone is not the same as a person crying because they just lost a loved one. Enabling a person to maintain a dysfunctional belief does not help them.

You seem to be confusing empathy with enabling. If I told her that it was everyone else who needed to change and not her, then yes, I would be an enabler. But I didn't; I gave her two tangible pieces of advice she can do to improve her situation, one of which was learning to not let the teasing bother her. Sometimes people benefit from hearing the cold, unvarnished truth, and sometimes people need to be handled a little gently. Being a little sympathetic and acknowledging that she feels the way she does for a reason is not enabling.