When the media started mispronouncing Kamala Harris’ name, I have to admit I rolled my eyes more than once at the pearl clutchers on the left who saw it as a deliberate insult to the Democratic presidential candidate.

The way they emphasized the wrong syllable into a racist and sexist slur seemed laughable, particularly since it was an unusual name to begin with and Americans are generally not gifted in linguistics.

As a former high school French and Spanish teacher and someone who has also taught Italian, I forgive anyone who gets tongue-tied with foreign languages.

But then I had a little epiphany when a 1960s heartthrob passed away last week. James Darren was probably the most handsome of the Philadelphia crooners who rose to fame over six decades ago.

While he didn’t have the pipes of Bobby Rydell or the subversive sex appeal of Fabian or even the beach bod wholesomeness of Frankie Avalon, he was a classically handsome Italian boy of a certain style and generation with his chocolate brown gaze, his swarthy complexion and his shiny crown of ebony hair.

How did I know he was Italian?

Certainly not from his name. Where were the vowels?

“Darren” was a nice bland creation of a WASP-y past where PR folk sanded away the troubling edges of an overly ethnic past.

Everyone in Darren’s native South Philly knew him by his family name, Ercolani.

But even though this Italian surname was easy to pronounce, relatively speaking, I suspect that it was too ethnic for those melting pot days when people in the entertainment business strove to fit in with the bland Sandra Dee ideal.

Here’s a list of some other famous stealth Italians:

• Anthony Dominick Benedetto: Tony Bennett

• Robert Louis Ridarelli: Bobby Rydell

• Francis Thomas Avallone: Frankie Avalon

• Jasper Cini: Al Martino

• Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero: Connie Francis

• Anna Maria Italiano: Anne Bancroft

• Michael James Vitenzo Gubitosi: Robert Blake

• Dino Paul Crocetti: Dean Martin

Italians weren’t the only ones who sliced off letters or completely reworked their names.

Spartacus was brought to brilliant life by a guy who entered the world as Issur Danielovitch and exited as Kirk Douglas.

The guy who helmed the MDA Labor Day Weekend Telethon was known as Joseph Levitch to his mother and father, while the rest of us called him Jerry Lewis.

The gorgeous redhead who seduced men in Gilda was billed as Rita Hayworth but seduced her parents as a gorgeous brunette baby baptized Maria Rita Cansino.

I’m often told how lucky I am to be called Flowers, and some have even asked if our family changed it when they came over “on the boat.”

For the record, I have very little information about my Irish daddy’s family history, which is why I identify so strongly with my Italian mother’s side. As it is, no one has any idea looking at me what my bloodline might be, and my last name gives no clue.

But I know.

A friend recently made an important point when she said if you don’t have any significant role models growing up, it becomes much more difficult to believe you have a place in the pantheon of achievement.

Today, that principle is not only accepted, it’s fundamental.

We’ve actually overdone it with the DEI insistence on micro-diversity, where every aspect of a person’s identity must be represented and celebrated.

We’ve gone from a melting pot, where we all tried to fit in even at the expense of our ancestors, to standing out so far that we have made a mockery of the word “United” in United States.

Still, pride in origins matters.

That’s why I was so thrilled to see Antonin Scalia elevated to the Supreme Court, and why I was outraged when the bigots tried to erase Columbus.

The opposite of pride is shame.

That is why I think so many of the singers and artists I mentioned before changed their names, either willingly or because some studio executive forced them to.

Ironically, that is why so many of us gathered to defend statues of Columbus. We didn’t care about the statue per se. We cared about what it represented.

We, the Italians of James Ercolani’s native South Philly, refused to be shamed into erasure.

So in a sense, names do matter.

And for that reason, I will make sure that I pronounce Kamala’s name correctly, from now on.

Copyright 2024 Christine Flowers