My Voice

My full first name is Joey. That’s it. No, really. Just Joey. This is something that no one can ever get through their mind. I can not tell you how many times people insist that my name must be Josephine. It’s not.

There are two different stories as to why I got my name aside from the reason that I use. My dad, Joe, tells everyone that I was named after him. My mom tells a different story. She said that she read a book in middle school, before she met my dad, that had a female character named Joey and she loved it and decided then that she would name her daughter that. I tell people that I was named after the dancer Joey Heatherton. You know, the dancer that stabbed her boyfriend with a knife. I chose to take that reason.

My middle name, Nicole, is actually pretty common. There was another girl with the same middle name in my class all through school and a countless number of girls with that first name. It’s my aunt’s middle name and that’s why it was chosen.

Volquartsen is probably the worst last name you can grow up with. No one can spell it. No one can pronounce it. So many times when role call is said in a class I know I am up next because there is a huge pause before the next name and the reader always makes the same face.

When I had my first professional job in theatre my costume tags were labeled with the wrong name. They spelled it Valquartsen. My music teacher in school spelled in Vulgurtson in every program through high school. My great-grandpa still calls us the Volkswagons. There is a joke in the theatre department that I will be famous one day, but my name will not.

The most interesting is when people ask me “how do you say this,” and I tell them they answer “well that’s what I would have guessed.” I have to wonder how many of them would actually say that.

Role call is always an issue for me though. Not just because of the pronunciation, but because everyone expects a boy. In high school I never met another female Joey. I have since coming to college but it was a weird name where I grew up. One time at an overnight honor choir I was assigned to a boys dorm because they expect that I was a guy.

Not my voice (5 year old)

My name is Joey Nicole Volquartsen. I am a girl. I have never met another girl named Joey. I am not a boy.

Joey is the only name I have. People ask me if my name is Josephine. It’s not.

No one can spell my last name. It makes me laugh how many different ways they spell it. Even my family members don’t get it right.