Call my house........ask for E-Loin.......I’ll answer
Catholic Light, Victor Lams and some other blogs have had some interesting discussion on baby naming.
I do sometimes think there should be laws defining the parameters of appropriate names for children. And the variant spellings. Someone should tell parents that an unusual spelling doesn’t make them special..........it’s a mess and it can make them into a very vexed adult. I’m speaking as someone who has a mildly varied name. There are other Ellyns out there. I’m sure my parents thought they were doing the right thing. Especially being a Smith, it probably gave me a little pizzazz. They had also been at some sort of impass between Ellen and Lynn. I’ve given up correcting people unless we’re talking legal documentation. It’s just not worth the effort. Except for the clowns who can’t even pronounce it. That would be indicative of the poor phonics education in our country.
One of my first memories of kindergarten was feeling smug because I could read when I got there. (which was actually discouraged back in 1960) The teacher held up a card for each child and asked him/her to stand up when they saw their names. But she held back and gave the cards to Evelyn Helm and me (see - I’m so traumatized I remember her name 42 years later) because she didn’t think we would be able to tell the two names apart. Then, there was the clerk (named at Ellen) at Marshall Field’s who saw my name on my charge card and said, “I wanted to change my name to Ellyn but my mother said it was pretentious.” Thanks.
Of course, I’m lucky. I had great parents. First of all - they let me be born. Which is not a given in the year 2002. And if the worst thing they did was saddle me with a funky ‘y’ I’m a pretty lucky girl.
In the mea culpa department, one of my girls has Lenor as a middle name. My dad had suggested Lenore, after hearing some Appalachian song about the ‘lovely Lenore’ on public radio. Then I had the brilliant idea to make it Lenor - and anagram of Dad’s name Loren. It seemed cool at the time. It’s just a good thing I didn’t do it for a first name. She thinks it has something to do with The Raven. Whatever.
My sister (the public defender) sees all sorts of interesting names. This would lead her to connect weird names with criminal behavior. Antwan is our all time favorite. (There do seem to be more Antwans on the police blotter than Antoines) The best though, was a name she found in the state legal journal about a criminal who wanted to change his name from something extremely pedestrian to Romanceo Sir Tasty MaxiBillion. The court said no. I think it should have been allowed. How many Mr. MaxiBillion’s are in the Wisconsin crime database? He would be very easy to follow.
Yeah, we do call Eddie Sir Tasty sometimes. It did stick as an appropriate term of endearment for a cuddly 10 pound baby. I’ll give it up when he gets to a certain age............but I’ll try to remember to pass it along to his wife...........
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