What’s in a name?

What’s in a name?

Baby names have become a popular subject around these parts. I was going to post some of this stuff a couple of months ago, but lost my nerve. I was afraid people would think I’m crazy. But what the heck… I think people are starting to know me well enough to realize I really am crazy; so there’s no point hiding it any more.

A couple of months ago, I was telling some friends how Elizabeth came to be named after me. You see, I really hate the name Elizabeth. Well, at least I hated it when I was growing up. I felt like the name Elizabeth was big and clumsy and completely lacking grace… all things that I felt described me. I felt like having the name Elizabeth announced to the world, “Here come one big, clumsy, ugly, slob.”

It didn’t help that my mom was and still is very lazy when it came to saying my name. She has never pronounced it correctly. She always says “Lizbuth.” Can you imagine always hearing Lizbuth. It just felt ugly. I think on a subconscious level that added to my feeling that the name was too big and too awkward. Heck, she couldn’t even say all of the syllables.

I longed for a beautiful, popular name. I wanted to be Patty. I would have died to be Linda. Even Amy would have been a good name.

You see, I made an interesting observation all those years as a Lizbuth. I noticed that a person’s name seemed to roughly equate with their social status. If you had a beautiful, popular name, then you were a beautiful, popular person. If you had a fat, awkward, ugly, unpopular name then you were a fat, awkward, ugly unpopular person. Most people seemed to have average names and they were average looking, average intelligence, average popularity. There were a few people who managed to overcome their name and achieve higher social standing than their name would imply – but this was the oddity. And you never saw someone with a beautiful, popular name with social standing below their name. I have never met an ugly, unpopular Linda. Have you? It just doesn’t happen.

In other words, giving your child a good name was good. Giving your child an average name was OK. Giving your child a bad name was playing with fire… there was a very slim chance they could overcome its badness, but the odds are that you were dooming your child to a life of unpopularity, ridicule, and ugliness.

You see this is how my mind worked as a 10-year-old. And while, the principles seemed to have held true through thirty-odd years of testing them, I don’t really believe this. At least not as much as I did when I was kid.

However, when it came time to name my own child… well, I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t pick a name that wasn’t on the top ten list. I wasn’t about to take that risk. If my child turned out to have a hard time in the social department… I didn’t want one bit of that blood on my hands. I was going to do everything in my power to give my child every possible advantage. Even if that meant something as stupid and superstitious giving her a name that was on the top ten list.

I’ve never told anyone this before. I didn’t even tell Elizabeth’s father why I was so adamant that her name had to be on the top ten list. I kinda fell like it’s slightly crazy. But crazy or not… we’re talking about someone’s life here and I take my responsibility as a parent very seriously. I’m going to give my child every advantage I can… even if the advantage is only in my own mind. (Besides, what if I AM right?)

Elizabeth’s father wanted to name her after one of our cats. At the time we had the following cats: Zeus, Buba, Synthesis, Vector, Fulcrum, Thruster-spot, Thruster-not, Baby, and Torque. I’m not making this up. He really wanted to give our child one of these names. After hours and hours and hours of fighting, we came to the compromise that our child COULD have Zeus as her middle name of an appropriate first name could be identified. I wasn’t happy with this decision, but we were at a dead lock and I decided that an odd middle name was a million times better than an odd first name. Heck, even without my Popular Name Theory; our cats didn’t have names that readily translated to human names.

Feeling the taste of victory, Elizabeth’s father started to concentrate on more reasonable first names. He decided that our child should be called Amanda Zeus. This name does have a certain ring to it. It’s not a bad name. But I found it unacceptable. First, I have some bad associations with name Amanda. I knew a girl in college… not pretty, not popular, nuff said. And to prove that point the name Amanda was not on the top ten list for that year.

The name Samantha was on the list. I suggested Samantha Zeus. It has the same ring as Amanda Zeus, plus the benefit of being on “The List.” Besides, I liked the idea of having a little girl name Sammy. In my mind’s eye I could imagine this little, curly haired girl with big eyes bopping around my house.

I made the pitch to her father and he liked it. Everything was settled. Our child would be named Samantha Zeus.

Somewhere around week 36 or 37 Elizabeth’s father dropped the bomb. He announced that Samantha Zeus was unacceptable because his child had to have a Biblical name. This was pretty disturbing news. We were getting down the wire. The name had been agreed to weeks before. Now all of a sudden everything was different.

I went to get “The List.” Mysteriously, the list was mixed in with his car magazine. I thought this was odd. Had he been looking at it recently?

One look at the list and my heart sank. The only Biblical name on the list was Elizabeth. Her father knew how much I hated my name. He knew I would scratch my own eye balls out with my finger nails if I could get a better name. I had the odd feeling he was playing with me. But what could I say. On the surface, he looked like he was earnestly interested in religious pursuits. He exampled how it was a long family tradition on his side of the family… Children had to be given Biblical names.

I was pretty stupid. I could have fought him on this issue, but I was so upset by the falling bomb that I missed the most obvious argument… You see, he said this was a long standing family tradition. But get this… his mom’s name is Doris and his dad’s name is Emory.

Anyway, I didn’t fight him. I went into a panic. How could I name my child Elizabeth? Yes, it made it onto the list, but I had spent so many years hating it. The next couple of days were spent ruminating on this dilemma. What was I going to do?

A funny thing happened. God talked to me. He used the television show ER, but it was a message from God. I know it was!

That season Dr. Benton was having a fling with another doctor named Elizabeth. Elizabeth was from England. She was beautiful. She had long curly hair and big, deep eyes. She was strikingly beautiful. Dr. Benton and Elizabeth were having an intense emotional scene. She was gorgeous and Dr. Benton kept saying her name. He would say E-liz-a-beth. The way he said it was beautiful. His voice was deep and strong and cradled each syllable as if were a valuable jewel. Suddenly I knew, God wanted us to name our child Elizabeth. I started to cry. I was hormonal.

You should have seen the look on her father’s face when I came bounding down with excitement and joy. He wasn’t expecting me to give in. He wasn’t expecting me to be happy about the name Elizabeth. Time was running out and he was stuck.

We argued some more over the middle name. Zeus really didn’t go with Elizabeth. It didn’t roll off the tongue. He came up with some really odd-ball suggestions. I had this idea that my daughter should have a male middle name. As a small business owner, I’d had some problems with sexism and I really wanted my daughter to have the ability to hide her gender (at least on paper.) By the way, that’s another reason I had like Samantha so much. But with a male middle name she could always sign documents as E. Middlename.

After much fighting we settled on Elizabeth Franklin. Now that she’s six years old; I think her name suits her.