Legendary Woodsman

My name is Tony Esteves. I like my name. I’ve had it all my life and I’ve grown fond of it. Some people do not feel as fortunate.

When I was starting elementary school, the biggest challenge with my name was how people pronounced it. My family originates from Portugal and if I have interpreted it correctly the faux-phonetic way of pronouncing my last name is Ee-shtivzh (two syllables and the “zh” is like the sound from Zsa Zsa Gabor).

That isn’t how people would pronounce it though because it’s near impossible to pronounce for the majority of English-speaking North Americans. Imagine me at 5-years-old, waiting to hear my name called and they would instead say:
Ee-Stee-Veez
e-Stee-Veez
Ee-Stee-vez
e-Stee-vez
e-Steevs
Ee-Steevs
e-ste-Veez

And finally settled on e-ste-vez, thanks in part to Emilio Estevez.

That’s right, I owe a lot of thanks to the fictitious coach of the Mighty Ducks and Charlie Sheen’s brother. So one would imagine that I would not take offense if my name was misspelled to resemble his… but for some reason it does indeed irk me. I suppose I should take it in stride.

If my name was John Stuart, Aaron Smyth, or Shawn Thomson, I’d see a whole lot more spelling mistakes with my name. I’m lucky my name is only mistaken for a Brat Pack alum.

-tony