It's HELENA - Get It Right!

…How the heck do you pronounce that? Helayna? Helehna? Heleena? NO. For the last time, it’s pronounced….well, unfortunately this is on a piece of paper, and I can’t show you how it’s pronounced. So yeah, you win. Go on, keep mispronouncing it like the other seventy-five percent of people I know.
I never have enjoyed having the name ’Helena’. Unlike when they named my brother, when my parents picked my name they didn’t take into consideration the ways in which people could make fun of it. Since preschool, people have never failed to point out the obvious first syllable of my name: ‘hell’. Big deal. Come on you guys, be more sophisticated. Notice the elaborate structure; the fluent sound it produces as it rolls off your tongue. Does anyone pay any detail to its originality or uniqueness? When people see my name, does any thought of the ancient Greek myth of which it was extracted arise in their minds? No. All they notice is ‘hell’. Thanks a lot, Mom and Dad.
And lately, I’ve even gotten comments like, “Oh, your name is just Helen without the ‘a’.” Okay, let’s get something straight. ‘Helena’ came before ‘Helen’. In fact, ‘Helen’ is only the English version of the name ‘Helena’. My name is a famous one in Greece. Its origins lie in the ancient Greek tale of the Trojan War; the story of the face that launched a thousand ships. Helena was the wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, and the most beautiful woman in the world. Her abduction by the Trojan prince, Paris, sparked the beginning of Trojan War, a bloody war that lasted over ten years. This myth, from which my name came from, has been heard throughout the entire world. In most languages, the name ‘Helena’ was kept in its original form, however, in English it was changed to ‘Helen’ - a less foreign-sounding name, and much easier to pronounce. Which brings us back to the issue of pronunciation.
In my entire life, I can’t remember ever going through a whole school year without having at least one teacher mispronounce my name. In the States, its ‘hell-AY-nuh’. In Europe, it was usually ‘ell-eh-NAH’. Here, in Malaysia, I get a lot of ‘hell-EH-nuh’, mixed in with a little “hell-EE-nuh’. It’s gotten to the point where I almost don’t even notice it anymore, except for the ‘hell-AY-nuh’: those really annoy me. But anyway, yes, I hardly hear the mispronunciations anymore. Still, it would be nice to have a name that would sound the same, whether it was coming out of my mouth or my P.E. teacher’s.
Even with all this whining about my name, and the thought I put into how much I dislike it, I still can’t think of any other name that I would replace it with. I’ve been stuck with this one my entire life, so even the thought of having another one is a little strange. But if I had another name, I would want it to be unique, but not totally weird. I would want it to be easy to utter, but not so much that no one would notice it when it wass said. Short and simple, but not a one-syllable name that would be done saying just micro-seconds after beginning. Interesting sounding, but not a name that would have to be repeated four or five times before a person could say it with ease. If any such name exists, it’ll definitely take a while to find it.
Helena. That’s my name. Not necessarily the one I would have chosen, but mine, all the same. It is the name I have now, and will have for my whole life. Good enough for me.
….Just remember to pronounce it right :)