Monday 2 August 2010

pondering the if and's or what not....

I am super nosy, I am like that crazy person who loves finding out random fun facts about...everyone...it can get awkward, sometimes it is down right rude...but deep inside me there is this need...to know...
about your name, for instance...is it a family name? do you like it? what does it mean? how is it spelled? well maybe I don't ask that cause really i am more into the story of the name rather than the actual logistics of the name...I mean what if you were named Olga after your maternal grandma who died flying planes in world war II? How cool is that!
Another fav question is what would you have been named if you were a boy? My roommate would have gone from being Alexandria to Jergin...even her sister Samara could have been Jergin...I think God intervened...cause Alexandria Marie and Samara Rose are such beautiful names...and Jergin well,...isn't...
the story of your name, I feel like finding out you were named after your parents favorite politician, Diefenbaker or Kissinger, starts the imagination rolling as well as answers some significant questions...it's like this alternate reality...the universal question of 'what if?' or 'would a rose by any other name?'
I mean who would you have been if you had been named Ruth instead of Carissa, what if you really had been given all the middle names your mother wanted to give you...like, Susanna Elizabeth Anne Lydia Mary....the story of your name and you...it fascinates me.
insert random soliloquy
where does a parents inspiration come from?
My sisters are purists...they are back to the Bible...if it's not in the book, it's not making the cut in their family...
then there is the literary couple, with children like Bronte and Darcy...
or the stepford's naming their offspring with numbers like Bryce Arnold Jessup IV...
the classics will always be in style, names like Jane and John...I mean would this world come to if there were no more John's? but you could be named John because of your uncle who died or you could be 'named' John because your a spy and you needed a really lame alias that won't draw any extra attention that Fabio would...
which brings us to the foreign name contingent...which can take on a whole range of possibilities...I mean your parents could be tracing their family history with names like Savannah, Florencia, Brooklyn...or they could just be suffering from geographical confusion with names like Asia, or Africa and America...which continent do you come from?
you could be named after your mother's two favorite celebrities, Aniston Jolie...or your father's favorite power tool...Dewalt...
end random soliloquy
you carry your name with you till you are no more...true, you can change it for a price, and most of us tweak it here and there from time to time...we like to call this a 'nickname' but really it could be a subtle way of having an identity crisis or simply making a bad name work for you... nicknames can also be given by others which is a whole different post in itself...
cause usually, in most cases, your stuck with your given name from the moment your parents know about your existence. and whether they have a meaning or story for your name before you arrive...just by being you...your name takes on a whole life of it's own...it's your story, your journey, your epitaph, and I want to know cause...

it's
not
just
a
name.

3 comments:

Ben said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ben said...

Love it!<3

My nick name is Madonna. Not really though. This is a great blog though.

Stefanie said...

I love this, especially the end, because I think it is so true! There's so much to the names we're given, the names we have. They absolutely have impact on the people we are... I'm just glad I'm not Garrett....