What's in a Name?

Today I've been thinking about names. I think it's interesting the amount of time and thought most people put into what they name their children. All of my kids have had a running list of name possibilities for their children, since they were small, that has frequently changed as they have grown. The most unusual, and thankfully currently out of the running, was Bizanne.

Usually even before the woman is pregnant couples are discussing, and often discarding, possible names for their children. Once a baby is on the way it seems to be a frequent topic of conversation until a decision is reached. Some people love to share the chosen name with everyone they meet and others guard it like it's a state secret. I believe a child's name might be one of the most discussed and thought out decisions a couple actually makes together.

I was named after my cousin who died at the age of 10 from complications associated with the measles. I guess I wasn't so much named after her, as my parents liked the name and asked my aunt if they could use it. As a child, I always felt bad that I didn't have a middle name. All my brothers and sisters had middle names and I put the fact that I didn't have one on my list of reasons why I believed I was adopted. (The fact that I was cuter than the rest of the family was also on the list. I had a pretty high opinion of myself as a child.) I remember telling my mom that I thought my middle name should be Grace. It was a family name and I thought it went well with my first name. My mother didn't really think Grace fit my personality. I was (and still am) anything but graceful.

When I was growing up there was usually at least one other person with the same name as mine in my class in school. That usually didn't bother me. In fact during my last year of high school my best friend and I had the same name and we enjoying walking through the halls, both answering regardless of which one of us was being addressed. I think it was more confusing for other people than it was for us. I thought it was fun. My name is not spelled with the usual spelling and I used to get frustrated because people would always spell my name wrong. As I have gotten older I have reached the point where I really don't care how it is spelled. I feel like someone is doing good to know what my name is, let alone how to spell it.

My husband's name is unusual, but I think it fits him. No one in his family calls him by his name. They all call him by his nickname, Boy. Pretty much everyone in his family has a nickname that they go by with the family rather than their actual name, but in public they go by their real names. It can get kind of confusing sometimes. It's taken me 25 years to sort it all out.

Although I like my name, I have never had a desire to name any of my children after myself and my hubby has felt the same way. We have 4 children and their names all start with the same letter. This wasn't necessarily an intentional decision until we were expecting our last child. We didn't want to give him any obvious items to add to his "How I know I am adopted list" and being the only child with a name that started with a different letter would have definitely made the list.

When we found out that our first child was on the way we kicked up the speed on the name discussion. We both felt like we were going to have a girl. We narrowed the list down to 3 names. 2 girl names, I liked one and the hubby liked another and Justin Case for a boy. This was "just in case" she turned out to be a boy. Before we came to a final decision, my husband had a dream in which he saw our daughter and she told him that she really liked her name. She said what it was when he asked and it happened to be the name I liked. The discussion was over. This has worked out well for us because if this child ever complains about her name, which is a very popular name for her age group, we just tell her she picked it.

Our second child received a name that we both liked, but we felt was somewhat uncommon, especially the way we spelled it. He has run into a few boys with the same name during his lifetime so far, more than we would have expected. When he was about 2, I actually found his name in a baby book, spelled the same way, and it's meaning was "to sing". It fit him perfectly and we didn't even know it. When he was an infant he would sing himself to sleep in my arms (I think he liked his voice better than mine), his favorite toys were always ones that involved music and singing, and he is well remembered for his singing during the annual ward Primary Children Sacrament Meeting Program.

The third child to grace our family was automatically referred to by the name my husband had wanted for our first daughter. He had heard it on an episode of "The Streets of San Francisco" and really liked it. I will go on record here as saying that this is one good thing that has come from his love of TV watching. It was always a given that this would be her first name. It took a while to decide how to spell it. It is spelled exactly like it sounds, but it is usually mispronounced. There are very few people with the same exact name and only one that we have ever met that spells it the same way. If you're curious you can find it on a name tag at a Safeway store in Tempe, AZ. A little more discussion went into choosing her middle name. (I made sure all of my children knew they were loved by giving them each a middle name.) We finally came up with a combination of her grandmother's names. The first half of her paternal grandma's name and the last half of her maternal grandma's put together. She usually shortens it to "L dot".

The youngest child's name was the most difficult to come up with. He was the only child we photographically knew the sex of before he was born. We liked the idea we had come up with of combining the grandma's names and decided we would combine the grandpa's names for his first name. However this didn't work out when we tried it and realized we already had a son by that name. Yup, our oldest son's name is a combination of the first half of his paternal grandpa's name and the second half of his maternal grandpa's and we didn't even know it. He was possibly going to be named after a popular college basketball player who was part of the "fab five" that played for Michigan in 1992. This child was a huge fan of March Madness while still in the womb. He couldn't stay still while I was watching any of the games. His dad really liked this name, but I felt it was a little feminine. We finally agreed on a name and his dad chose the spelling. For the first year of his life my mom referred to this son by a different name. By changing an a to an o it becomes a girl's name and that was what my mom was sure his name was. So much for a name that wasn't too feminine. He is the most vocal of our children about wishing he had a different name. I like his name because it is one syllable and easy to yell.

I have sometimes wondered if a person's name has any impact on who or what they become? All the Juliannes or Juliannas I've known have been very smart. Was that in some part because of their name? Would they have been just as smart if their names were Doofiss?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Juliet In the early history of America, girls were often named after a desirable character trait such as Truth, Hope, Faith, Constance, Pleasant, Prudence, Patience, Duty, Charity... Do you think a child named Pleasant always was or a child named Truth never told a lie? I have thought if this were the case, what character trait would I have chosen to name my children after? Would it be Faith, or Hope, or Charity, or Joy, or perhaps Responsibility, or Obedience? Why does it seem that character traits that are used as names usually seem to be female? What would I name my boys, especially if I have a problem with feminine names? How about Grit, or Brave, or Loyal, or Strong, or Tenacious? I thought of one - Frank! Knowing how wordy I am and my lack of decision making ability, I would probably get carried away and name my child Pleasant Faith Charity Obedience Joy Patience and she would just end up confused for life instead of actually reflecting any of those qualities she was named for. Recently I was watching an episode of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman". In it they referred to how certain cultures such as the Native Americans and the Chinese give individuals new names based on important events or experiences in their lives. Most people would have several different names during their lifetime. What event in my life would I want to be named after? "Woman who moved to Arizona and thought she would die of heat stroke." "Woman who yelled until her voice disappeared". "Lady who loved to laugh at dumb things". It could be kind of interesting, but those kind of names seem a little long. You'd definitely need to have a nickname. I guess it's a good thing I just stuck to names that started with the same letter of the alphabet. It makes the list a lot shorter and less confusing.