Huck le Berry

Huck le Berry is a nickname my brother gave me many years ago.  I had spent a couple of weeks in France, my first visit to the land of wine, cheese and romance.

Talking to the French I realized that it is almost impossible for them to pronounce my name correctly. Heike, an easy enough name I suppose but not when you are French. To begin with, the French do not pronounce the ‘h’ at the beginning of a word. Eike. That would not have been all that bad but: they also skip the ‘e’ at the end. Eik. I cannot say I was happy about that.  Eik. ( Pronounced “ike”).  But for some reason that was still not enough, they continued to mutilate my already short name.  Eik turned into Ack or Uck or something like that, it was not a name any more, or a word, or anything really. Letters had been swallowed and sounds rendered unrecognizable.  There was not much left of my name and what was left sounded  like someone trying really hard to fight nausea. Nothing romantic about that.

Back in Germany I told my brother about my experience with French pronunciation and he thought it was hilarious. He started to call me Huck which eventually turned into Huckleberry. And one day he left a note on my desk: Hallo Huck le Berry…