Greetings,

Every time I meet someone new, they almost always pronounce my name wrong. I've never taken offence to it - most of the time I think it's funny or I'm a little embarrassed. I have a name that ninety-nine percent of people have never seen - Taline. My mom named me Taline because it is of Armenian origin, and she is full Armenian along with her parents. I used to view my name as sort of a curse because of how awkward it is for people to pronounce, and I envied my brother for his short and simple name - Erik. Every time I have a substitute teacher I brace myself for their interesting pronunciation. The most common one is tall-line, which comes as no surprise because that's exactly how my name looks. I've also gotten many others such as tay-line or talin. I remember finding a variation of my name on the map in freshmen year geography - Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. "Tallin" has been a nickname that my friends have given me since then. When I was younger, my family used to refer to me as "taliney beany". I'm not really sure who or how he or she came up with that one or why it stuck. To this day my grampa is the only one who calls me that. I've decided to title my blog "tall-lean" as sort of a pun on how to correctly pronounce my name.

Taline