The College Perspective by Lindsey

Growing up with a name like Lindsey Smith, you find that your life is pretty unextraordinary. Nobody mispronounces your name, nobody really makes fun of it. Everyone struggles to spell it, but nobody really cares enough to fix it. It’s an ordinary name. So ordinary in fact, that when I went on vacation with my family, a gas station cashier semi-seriously suggested that my family all had fake names and wanted to see some ID.

It’s no surprise that Smith is such a popular last name. In my family, cousins carrying the Smith name number in the 50’s while the Hildebrandt side only has 12. I’ve met many people with the last name Smith, even becoming friends with a girl whose other best friend was also named Lindsey Smith. These people are everywhere, bodybuilders and successful entrepreneur.

Even the name Lindsey is pretty popular. Spellings might be different but people can’t help but tease me about sharing my name with Lindsay Lohan. We couldn’t be more different, but people like a good coincidence.

Linzey, Linsey, Lindesey, Lindsay, Linzy. All these names. All of them wrong. You wouldn’t think it would be so hard to spell a name, but with names like Braxtyn, Haiyley, or Ashleigh, most names today are just a mix of random letters, like someone took the Welsh language and threw in the dryer to tumble around, confusing teachers for years to come. My name isn’t that bad though. One of the most common. It shouldn’t be that hard. Why even spell Lindsay like that and not pronounce it with an emphasis on the end like Ron Weasley practicing his “Leviosa’s?” Lindsey and Lindsay are not even close to the same person.

I don’t even think I’m overreacting a little bit when I say I want to aggressively shake the people who can’t seem to spell my name right even when it’s at the top of the email. You should know better than to lump me in with the Lindsay’s and Linzy’s of the world.