Naming Right(s)

Names have always been an important part of my life.

Naming something -- like a stuffed toy -- took an inordinate amount of thinking power for me. I wanted it to be just right.

When I began writing, I would often ask my mom to help me come up with the perfect names for my characters. (She's so clever!)

Names denoted the characters' personalities and their roles in the tale. I always lamented to her that I didn't know what I would do when I was all grown up and needed help figuring out the names of my stories' characters. (I guess I didn't think about phones.)

Then came the pets.

I always think that pets and people need to look like their names, and the names need to click.

My hubby thinks this is hilarious since "How can someone look like a name?"

I don't know but it must be true because when my paternal grandmother came to see my middle sister after she was born and my parents told her they'd named her Christine, she said that she [my sister] just didn't look like that name. And my parents looked at her and agreed, renaming her Michelle.

So all of the pets I've had over the years have had names that fit. Their names clicked in my mind.

Next came the kids.

Emily was named for my paternal grandmother. It was a name I'd hoped to use since I was little girl. I wanted my grandmother to "live on" through her name. And with the meaning of "busy one," it perfectly suited our little "fuzz-top" daughter.

Edward was named so simply because we loved the name, and we wanted another "e" name. It was perfect -- and unusual, at least in the U.S.

It was hard picking out their names ahead of time since I didn't know if the kids would fit their names. But somehow they "looked" like their names, despite my hubby's mirth at the idea. *wink*

So what's in a name? Why is it so important what we're called?

Because names define who we are. They are like an extension of who we are - fullname or nickname.

Emily likes being called Emmy or Em, a softer more personal version of her name.

Edward has never gone by Ed or Eddie. He might decide to change that one day. But for now he enjoys his fullname...despite how often people try to change it. *wink*

My fullname is Susanne. But I've always been Susie (Su-su to my family when I was really young)....until one day in 8th grade when I'd moved to a new school and the kids and teachers began calling me Sue. I hated it, but I got so tired of correcting them that I accepted it and continued to go by it.

(Afterall, Susie was so babyish, right? *wink*)

A funny thing happened when I got married. I'd been Sue through the rest of my schooling, including university, and then into my working years. But when I got married, I went back to Susie.

I remembered a friend we had in England, an older French woman who went by that name. She wasn't too old for such a "young" name.

I remained Sue Wilson at the newspaper and Susie Foote at home. That way it acted more like an alias or pseudonym....and if I met any of the victims subjects of my articles they wouldn't know who I really was...

Ooops...was that my "out-loud" voice. Guess the cat's out of the bag (not that anyone I ever wrote about cares anymore).

I wonder what it's called....