Name Game

So, this strange thing happens with old people where, no matter how well they know me and my name, they insist on calling me Julie. Julie! My own grandmother does it (albeit less often than she used to, since my dad commented on it). I think my grandpa did too. And now, the nun. The nun! She writes it out in emails: Julie. She knows my damn name! Does she perhaps think that Julie and Julia are spelled the same? But how could that be? Like, maybe she thinks it's pronounced "Juli-eh" instead of "Juli-uh"?

I posed the question of why old people do this do Zach the other day, and he responded thusly:

"it's a good question. you'd think the name Julia would be normal and familiar enough.... i wonder when people started being called Julia. is it an older or a younger name than julie? hm.... too bad the oed doesn't have the etymology of personal names. or does it? does it?!?!!?!!!!"

He then did a little research (sadly, not in the OED, since it's guarded covetously and not available on the internet for free) and discovered that Julie is merely the French form of Julia, a name derived from the male Julius, the name of a few early saints and martyrs. And, duh, Julia was also used by Shakespeare in his play The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Like, hello? Are old people just illiterate, and believers of that whole "there's no way I can understand Shakespeare!" crap? (I mean, gawd, it's not like it's Middle English or anything.)

I was thinking that maybe having one fewer syllable makes it easier for them oldies, but came to two contradictions:

1) My grandma usually calls me, essentially, "Ju-ya," which is totes preferable, totes close(r) to my actual name, and still has only two syllables.

2) When you type it out, as the nun does, it has the name number of letters. That number being five. Which is not a big number.

I don't get it. But I really, really care about that last syllable.