What’s in a name?

bemused - adj (Source)
- deeply absorbed in thought;
- perplexed by many conflicting situations or statements;

Back when I was on the Blogger platform, I went by the name of Bemused. It reflected my state of mind at the time and mirrored the name of the blog.

But having a name that’s an adjective didn’t feel personal. So with the move to my personal domain, I searched for a new pen name.

Choosing a nom de plume was no easy task. I had to be proud of it. I had to relate to it in a way that it would become me.

After much searching, I stumbled across Cléa; its origins are explained in the About page. It held a certain delicate and feminine appeal to which I could relate. It could become me.

Cléa… I spent an entire weekend repeating it in my head, and although I would never hear it spoken, I liked the sound. The accent, with its French flavour and my interest in languages, highlighted the correct pronunciation, Cléa (Clé-ya) and not Clea, (Clee-ya).

I was faced with a dilemma. I knew the accent would be difficult to type and many would choose to omit it. So I asked the opinion of a good friend who told me beyond doubt to use the accent, as it was more me. I concurred. As for the é, as long as it was pronounced correctly, even when read in silence, I didn’t mind if the acute accent was dropped. Ce n’est pas grave*… if you pardon the French pun.

When this site was launched in February and I adopted Cléa as my nom de plume, some readers were kind enough to ask how to type the accent. I simply said, do as I do, ‘copy and paste’ from the sidebar. Recently I learnt that Alt-0233 does the job nicely.

I didn’t have the expectation that readers would use the accent, yet every time I see it, it makes me smile with gratitude, and I hear my name echo…
Cléa.

* Literal meaning – It’s not grave. It’s no big deal. Figurative meaning- It’s not a grave accent (è)