Ava had her first day at kindergarten today and she said when she went into the room after kissing Mom goodbye “I will be brave”. Big brother and she had a fine day in school and riding the school bus for the first time. My friend Dr. Sharon Siebold told us that her twin fifth graders were asked to write a story on how Mom and Dad got to name them their names. They told Mom that one paper was turned in without a name of the writer. In it, he said that his Mom had named him the name, she saw on a tattoo on the back of someone’s neck, before he was born. The kids were trying to figure out who it was. No one claimed the paper. Dr. S. said it must be a kid with a short name because you probably could not fit a long name like Sylvester on someone’s neck unless he had of course, a big neck. This was an interesting assignment for the kids.

Lots of people, mostly women or girls do not really like their names and wish their parents had named them a different one. The television actresses and actors and the screen stars name their kids unusual names such as Apple, Live, Tag. There is the old time joke, a woman had twins and named the girl Denise and the boy DaNephew.

Biblical names are popular for the last ten years. In my times, you called them old time names and did not want to name your kids that. Someone I know named her daughter Rachel and that was about thirty-five years ago. I thought it really old fashioned, nice and quite biblical sounding. I had a repair man named Thomas Thompson, a florist named Don Flowers; someone I knew named her son Dallas, another named her daughter Virginia and they lived in Virginia. I had a cousin Marilyn who lived in Maryland and I knew a girl named Ronny and her parents bought a home on Ranny Road. My housekeeper had several sisters; one was Hester, the other one Esther. I knew a girl whose name was Marlene, had a sister named Darlene and the third sister was Arlene.

I know a nice young woman named Fran, her real name is Vivienne. Her last name is Franderick and everyone always called her Fran and not Vivienne. She had a brother named Robert and everyone called him Rick. Roberts are usually Bob and I know one who calls himself Bert. I know someone, a very nice young woman and her names are Kimber Lee. She goes by the first one. I know a girl named Stefanie and they do not call her that or even Steffy, they call her Fanie, pronounced Fanny.

I know someone who named her twins Meg and Jo after the characters in the book Little Women and those were the names in there. My friend who has the fifth grader twins held off a few days naming them. She wanted to see if their personalities would become the names she chose for them. After three days, she saw it was too early to see that and so she named the twin born a minute before his brother with the C name and the second twin with the P name, allocating the names by the way the letter fell in the alphabet.

Everyone has their ideas on names. There are hundreds of baby book names and each one will tell you the meaning of the name and that is an interesting way to choose a name. I know a lady whose first name is Karalla and she named her son Karalem. Another one named her son Joe and her name is Josie.

I know someone whose name is Belinda, she named one daughter Linda and the other daughter Ralinda. We order carryout from Olive Garden and one of the nice young ladies who takes the call-in order has the name of Rollita. My name is Elita, so we struck up a ‘bonding’ thing between us with our similar names and she always gets my order straight and correct and gives me some extra tomatoes for my salad. My friend Diana has a daughter Cinthea which is usually spelled Cynthia. My email pal Dorothy has a daughter named Georgia because she was born in Georgia.

Names are interesting, provocative and fun. Uncle George use to call Aunt Rosemarie Dar for a nickname which was short for Darling. A lady whose first name was Darling worked in a fabric store I frequented. I know someone with the last name Creamer, when asked how to spell it, I have heard   the secretary in the office she works at say it and then say “it is like Coffee Mate, the creamer.” Cute.

Courtney, Krystle, Brittany,Ashley are all nice names. They were originally made popular by the soap opera characters that had those names. I met a lady named Lori which is another way of spelling Laurie. She said her mom spelled it that way of Lori, because she use to watch a soap opera in 1963 called The Edge of Night and that was the spelling of the girl named that on the show.

I met a girl working as a waitress several years ago and her name is Ravyn pronounced Raven. Here is Baltimore, Maryland; Raven is a much respected name. She was born long before we had the football team called The Ravens.

Do you know of people with interesting and different names? Write me in the comments column following this article. I would be interested in hearing them.

A name is an epithet, designation, a handle. It is nice to handle our given name with dignity. The old saying is “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” I know a nice person and her name is Rose.

My grandchildren were told that their Mom’s Grandma passed on and she is with God now. They said “I wonder what it would feel like to be with God.”  I guess God knows all our names.