It’s not often that one finds out that their name has been spelled incorrectly their entire life, but that’s what happened to Monet Edwards, 12.
“So now I spell [my name] without an accent, and it’s just M-O-N-E-T,” said Edwards. “All my life I thought that there was an accent over the E, and that’s also what my parents thought. There’s an artist named Claude Monet, and he’s a French painter, and [my mom] always thought that he signed his paintings with an accent over [the E]. So, that’s how I spelled it growing up, probably until, like, last year, and I was like, ‘Well, I wonder if [the accent] is on my birth certificate,’ because I looked up his paintings and there was no accent.”
When Edwards looked at their birth certificate, they discovered there was no accent over the E in their name. They explained that finding out their name had been spelled wrong all this time sent them into somewhat of an identity crisis.
“It was a bit of a shock moment. It was like, what the heck? And I talked to another stranger one time, and they were like, ‘What, there’s no accent over the E? I always thought there was one too.’ I was like, ‘Okay, so I’m not crazy,’” Edwards said.
Edwards described that the transition of finding out their name had been spelled wrong was an interesting experience because it changed what they had originally thought since they were a child.
“I always thought [it was written with an accent before the T]; that’s just how I grew up; that’s how my parents wrote it; that’s how I wrote it, and so I never questioned it or thought anything about it until I looked up his paintings and saw it. That’s how I knew for sure; it was when I found my birth certificate.”
After the shock wore off, Edwards said it now feels normal to spell their name without an apostrophe.
“I don’t really mind it, honestly. It feels natural now, but some of my friends are more confused than I am. And it’s always been written M-O-N-T-E and then apostrophe T, in Skyward and in the gradebook. I’m sure it’s just how my parents wrote it whenever they registered me for school, back in preschool, and it just hasn’t changed, and I’ve never said anything or really cared.”
