A name is a choice not governed by the spelling police, as any teacher is sure to be reminded of the first schoolday of every year.... Dutch.
A school-teacher friend told my wife of this first-day puzzlement over the spelling of a new pupil's name. The boy came to first grade, the first day of school, alone. When our friend asked him his name, he said it was "Gooey."
"What does your mother call you?"
"Gooey."
So the teacher asked the boy's older sister, in another grade.
"He name Gooey," the sister said.
So the teacher 'phoned the mother and asked her what the boy's name was.
"He name Gooey," the mother said.
The teacher sighed with resignation, already familiar with black mothers' special talent for coining kids' names, and asked the mother how to spell it.
"G, U, Y."
