In school I was the only one in my class that groaned at the sight of a substitute teacher sitting behind the big desk. Everyone else saw this as a free day. Some even recognized an opportunity to try out some new taunts or practical jokes. All I knew is that he or she would most likely demolish the pronunciation of my name during roll call and then I'd be Maria, May - uh or even My-E-Uh all day to my particularly obnoxious classmates.

As the years went by I grew to love having a name that hardly anyone else in my world had and no one I'd met until very recently shared the spelling of it that my mom and dad had chosen for me. I wouldn't change it for anything. Now that I'm on tour for my new album, Echo, the new groan is that when potential new fans hear it pronounced correctly on the radio (local, satellite and syndicated, most recently NPR's "All Things Considered") and they try to find me online, maya sharp, mia sharp, mya sharp, maya sharpe, mia sharpe or mya sharpe might not get them all the way there...to maiasharp.com. Hopefully this blog post will help remedy that. Then all that's left is the misspelled name on my daily Starbucks cup.