What's in a name?
By PAT WICK
© Another Day in the Country
Naming a child is such an awesome opportunity and the choice and style of names fascinates me. There was a time, in our family when Biblical names were the norm. Names like Jacob, Solomon, Samuel, Martha, Elizabeth, Naomi, Mary, and Joseph filled the pages of the family records.
There also was a time when you could guess the ethnic background by the name chosen. Latisha (African American), Olie or Sven (Swedish), Mary Rose (Irish), Magdalina or Je'sus (Mexican), and then all those Biblical names (German or Czech). But now in the melting pot, names are becoming more difficult to categorize.
In the paper today I came across a name that set me in a whirl. This name had no ethnicity attached and no Biblical history. Long! I'd heard advertisements with this name mentioned, but never dreamed that Long was a first name — I thought it was a partner's last name. Now, right there in the newspaper, under a picture, there was a caption listing two more MacArthurs. There was one named North and the other West. I was sure it was a typographical error until folks assured me that these were bona fide first names. "Is there an East or South in the family?" I wanted to know.
My friends shared tales about names when they discovered I was writing something on the subject. Judy was so named because it was her mother's maiden name.
"My mother was going to name me Viola," said Agnes, "but to honor my grandmother (who knew no English) for coming all the way from Nebraska to Montana (in the early 1900s), she gave me her name." Agnes, however, wasn't any too fond of that name and since she had no middle name to fall back on she made up a pretend middle name in grade school. "I'd sign my school papers with a beautiful middle name like Agnes Betty Lou or Agnes Rosemary to compensate," she admits ruefully.
"I've got one for you," said Marquetta — who sports an unusual name herself, "I had an Uncle Hazel and an aunt named Freddy." Topping that Bennie said he knew a man named June, "but he was the sheriff so I never asked him about the origin of his name — I was scared to," he laughed.
Naming is such a creative process. I named my first daughter Patrice Annette — a little take off on my own first name, Patricia, with the addition of my sister's middle name Annette. Then my sister changed her name from Prudence Annette, to Jessica and set the whole family into a relearning curve.
My second daughter was named Jana after my best friend Janet. Janet's daughter, in turn, must have been reading the almanac when she named her children: Sierra, Rain, and Summer.
In California, there seemed to be a trend back toward the old fashioned names, calling their little girls Sarah and Beatrice — their boys Sam and Eli. In these parts, however, the old names seem blasé.
If my third grade art class shows a trend, unusual names abound. There's Dylan, Genesis, Haleigh, Houston, Jerami, Kodey, Mikayla, Oaklan, Tabatha, and Terran — to name a few.
It's another day in the country and since we have no children to name, we name cats. We have Little Missy, Popeye, Peroit (as in the detective), Gorge (pronounced Hor-hay like the baseball hero). While their names are exotic, they don't know it, won't ever have to spell it and still answer best to "Here kitty, kitty!"
