William

When William was born, his parents called him Billy. His aunts and his uncles called him Billy too, as did his cousins. But his first-grade teacher, Miss March, called him Bill, and Bill he stayed for a very long time.

There were, of course, exceptions. First of all, his parents and aunts and uncles continued to call him Billy long after he was a boy. His brother and sister never abandoned Billy completely and alternate between Billy and Bill. He is both Uncle Billy and Uncle Bill to their children. And a girl at college, long dead, on whom he had an unreciprocated crush, called him Willy.

So, with few exceptions, William went through life being Bill until about 20 years ago, when he reached the age of 60. By that time, he felt that he had become sufficiently mature to merit using the name with which he was born. It's not that he had anything against Bill or Billy as names. He had several friends named Bill and he was a devoted fan of Billy Collins. It's just that he began to think of himself as William.

Still, he didn't like to ask people who had always called him Bill or Billy to call him William. He hadn't liked it when a friend asked him to call him Peter instead of Pete. He hadn't liked it when another friend transformed himself from Leon M. Mitchell, whom William had always called Lee, to L. McBride Mitchell, whom he was asked to call Mac. Of course, William acceded to his friends' wishes, but he didn't like having to do it. Change is hard, and he didn't want to inflict it on his old friends and relations.

But if he introduced himself as William to strangers, they wouldn't have any problem calling him William, and this is what he did. True, it was awkward when people who knew him as William met people who knew him as Bill, but those occasions were rare. It was only when he moved to Brooklyn that trouble arose. Here he met lots of new people - neighbors, members of his religious congregation, participants in his book club - who, much to his pleasure, now call him William as a matter of course. But he has lots of old friends in Manhattan who know him as Bill, and it was neither possible nor desirable to keep them away from his new friends in Brooklyn. What should he do?

He decided that at his age, close to 80, he could do as he pleased. He wouldn't ask his old friends and his family to call him William, but he would sign his e-mail messages to them as William and he would say "this is William" when calling them on the phone. His wife has supported him in this decision by referring to him as William when she talks to them. If they continue to call him Bill or Billy, he won't worry about it. What's important to him is his presentation of himself. And that self is William.

William doesn't know for whom he was named - it's the custom in his community for infants to be named for a dead relative - but he likes to think that that relative, at long last, is being properly memorialized. And he hopes that if any of his great-grandchildren are named after him, their parents will call him William right from the start and that this future William won't later call himself Bill.