Kim
Ayres
Location: Scotland, UK
Occupation: Photographer, Philosopher, Writer, Musician
Born: UK 1966
Family
Info: Married, 2 children, 3 stepchildren, 3 grandchildren
Web
Page: http://kimayres.blogspot.com/
Growing up with the name Kim
hasn't always been easy. In my life I have met countless females who
have shared my name, but never a man. Oh I’ve heard of them, and
occasionally been told that someone has a friend, cousin or work
colleague who is both male and called Kim, but I’ve never met one in
the flesh.
I know that there is a UK Labour Politician called
Kim Howells, that Rudyard Kipling wrote a book called Kim, that there
might be an Australian cricketer or two called Kim and there was once
quite a famous British spy/double agent called Kim Philby, but I never
met any of them.
As a child, when meeting kids (and occasionally
adults) for the first time, the most common response was “Kim? But
that’s a girl’s name!”, or “My sister’s called Kim and she’s a girl!”,
or they would start calling me Tim, Jim or Ken, assuming that they had
misheard what I’d actually said. It was so rare for someone not to make
comment on my name that I found I was always waiting for the reaction
as soon as I told someone. Consequently there has never been a time in
my life when I don’t inwardly prepare myself for a negative response, a
fraction of a second before any introduction.
As a teenager, I would have given anything to be called Steve.
Steve,
was a guy’s name. There was no mistaking a Steve for a girl. Steve was
the name of the Bionic Man – a guy so manly and tough that half his
body was a machine. He was stronger, faster and had better eyesight
than any ordinary Joe. He was beyond a man. Huge tough guys were like 7
stone weaklings compared to Steve Austin. Then there was Steve McQueen;
a real man’s man. Cool. Strong. Didn’t say much because he didn’t need
to. He didn’t have to be in touch with his feminine side because he
could ride motorbikes across enemy lines, and drive cars really fast
around the streets of San Francisco.
At school, Steve was the
good looking one who pulled the birds. Shoulder length, wavy hair and
all the girls fancied him. If I could have just hung around with him, I
could have got off with the girls who wanted him, but because he was
with their mate would settle for me until he became free again, and in
the meantime get closer to this testosterone ridden demi-god. However,
Paul had already got that role, so I just had to put up with watching,
with bitter envy, as all the girls crowded around him and ignored me.
When
you’re given a girl’s name you have to rebel against it. You have to
become more masculine, more manly. You have to sleep with more women
and drink more beer to prove your manhood – not just once, but again
and again and again. Then, by your 8th birthday, you start on the
whisky…
Ever since I was 5 I wanted to grow a beard. At 13,
Steve was shaving twice a day, but my chin was still as smooth as the
day I was born until I was 15, and then it was just the faintest bit of
fluff. By the time I was 18 I had a moustache that was beginning to
look like a moustache rather than a dirty mark I hadn’t washed off
after dinner. Unfortunately, around this time Freddy Mercury was
sporting a hairy upper lip and having a moustache now meant that you
were gay. I wasn't actually able to properly grow a beard until I was
in my early 20s, but you can be sure that I've never had a bare chin
since.
As a grown up, the reactions haven’t usually been so bad,
as most adults understand that laughing out loud and pointing a finger
at me isn’t the most mature of responses. Over the years the reactions
have moved from openly verbal to not-very-well-suppressed body language
and facial expressions of disbelief. However, this is an improvement of
sorts, as at least it doesn’t tend to draw the attention of everyone in
a 10-yard radius. But I have still had to endure more than 20 years of
letters that are titled “Ms”, people phoning for me yet asking for my
wife when I answer, and still, some people just come out and say “But
that’s a girl’s name,” as if they are revealing some secret that might
never have occurred to me.
However, there have been a couple of benefits.
When
I was 15 and was going out with a girl called Rebecca, who’s father
would have happily castrated any young man caught in the vicinity of
his daughter, she was able to phone me while her parents were in the
same room, knowing that if they overheard her saying “Is Kim there?”
and making arrangements to meet up with me, that they would never
suspect I was anything other than one of her female friends.
The
other advantage has been that people do remember me much more easily
and this definitely had benefits in business. During the course of your
average business networking meeting, you will meet countless Johns,
Davids and Steves, and after a while they all blur into each other.
However, everyone will remember the fat bearded guy with the girl’s
name.
Would I change it? No, I’m used to it now. A lifetime of
dealing with people’s reactions means that it’s no longer a big deal.
Did it have an affect on the naming of my own son? Too bloody right it
did. There was no way I was going to burden my son with a name that was
in any way feminine.
And yet, Rogan is not your everyday,
common, young man’s name. I have never met another person called Rogan,
but I knew that I didn’t want to call my son John, David or Steve. I
did want him to experience something of being a bit different as, in
the end, I feel my name has helped to shape the person I have become. A
bit more individual, capable of standing on his own two feet and having
an innate distrust of the herd mentality – these are qualities I would
like my son to share.
But don’t expect any Johnny Cash songs to be rewritten for either of us in the near future.