The question of the day - what do you think about your name and how did you get it?
My brothers (21 and 22 years older than me) named me. It came down to Delores or Patsy. My mother said "no" to Delores. So, Patsy it was.
My mother wanted a boy and had planned to name me Myron David. Oddly enough, one of my best friends in high school was a boy named MD. At some point, when we were seniors, I asked him what his given name was - Myron David. I have no idea where my mother heard the name Myron or why she was attracted to it.
My middle name is "Ann" - like 95% of the female population between 30 and 50.
I have always wished that they named me with a family name - Maranda Rose was my great grandmother and I've always loved that. Her mother's name was Sarah Emaline, which I also love. On the other side of the family, my grandmother's name was Minda Augusta, which I also like.
I don't mind my name at all. My family calls me "Pat" but everyone else calls me "Patsy." I had an aunt that called me "Patty" her whole life.
I don't get really worked up when people mispronounce my name or anything of that nature. Some people freak out. I just answer. It's not that big of a deal.
A name annoyance thing - when they ask me how to spell my name at a restaurant. I always just want to say - it doesn't matter - write down something you can say in a way that I'll know you mean me. You're not going to send me an engraved invitation, you're going to say my name over a $19.95 crackling speaker - the spelling is immaterial.
2 comments:
Names are fascinating, and there are so many interesting stories! I love that your brothers got to name you! I think that was a very wonderful and sweet thing for your mother to do!
My given name is Myleah Margarette, but my grandmother pinned "Mia" on me when I was a baby... must have been a strong pin, because it's stuck for almost 40 years! She called me that after a song that was popular in her heyday, "Cara Mia Mine" (Mia means "Mine" in Italian and Spanish, as I'm sure you know.) Mom was in the middle of a divorce when I was born, and had I been a boy, I would have been named Robert James after her two brothers. To this day, I'm fuzzy on where she heard of Myleah. It was like, Bing Crosby's brother's daughter's name, or something like that! Margarette was my great grandmother's name, and now my niece Natalie shares it as well! We pronounce ours like the more common spelling of "Margaret" (which is also my grandma's & mom's middle name, as well.) I had the privilege of being close to my Granny (great grandma) as a young child, so I've always been proud to carry her name. I was thrilled when my sister decided to carry on the family tradition when Natalie was born, making her the 5th generation Margarette or Margaret in our family! Back in the days when I thought I wanted to be a mom, I had picked out names for daughters... Helena Margarette (calling her Lena, after my grandma, Helen Margaret, and a great-great aunt, Lena) and Anna Eileen, after my grandmother's two sisters!
A name can really shape your personality to a degree... particularly if you don't like what you got stuck with! I wonder sometimes about so many of the young girls having babies nowadays, and giving them "out there" names, or fairly traditional names with weird spellings... I guess I'm just old fashioned!!
Wow! I really rambled on there! Guess you hit a topic that really interests me!!
Oh, btw, one of my best friends named her little girl Miranda Avalon Rose... she was just going to be Miranda Rose, but then two days before she had her, she heard "Avalon" used as a name and decided it sounded romantic (think Arthurian legend, not Toyota sedan!) and threw it in there!
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