Ismee Williams: Hi, my name is Ismee Williams, and the name Ismee comes from my mother who is actually Cuban, but the name is supposedly French. My mother and father went to France when she was pregnant, and my mother picked up a baby book, and she liked the name, and her first name also starts with an I. So she wanted an I name. But what is really interesting is that no French people have ever said that they've heard of this name before, and instead of that, some people ask if my name is Turkish. And I've also been told that the pronunciation Ismee in Arabic means my name is, which is interesting. And I guess a lot of people have difficulty saying my name, which is understanding because it is unusual. But I tell people, "Oh, it's like Renee or Estee Lauder," something like that but I respond to all variations of my name.

And when I was in high school, people started calling me Ish, because of Moby Dick for Call Me Ishmael, and I also had a physics teacher who called me something different every single day, and he called me Ishme, and so then everybody's calling me Ishme, so I am very relaxed when it comes to how you pronounce my name. I will not be offended, but that also explains why I very heartily embraced my husband's last name of Williams, because that is a name everybody knows how to say, or at least in the United States, most people know how to say Williams. And so I don't have difficulty having to spell my last name now either.