All right. I’m tired of “Tracey.” I’ve never liked it, actually. It has no music, no rhythm, no substance.
“Tracey. Traa-ceey. Traaaaa-ceeeeeey. Lord. What a dippy name.
Ohhh! The tragedy of a life consigned to silliness and fecklessness by virtue of the cotton candy weight of one’s name! If you’re reading this and you’re name is Tracey, too, you KNOW what I mean.
“Traaaaaaa-ceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey!!”
I once asked my mom what other names were discussed when she was pregnant with me, so that I could pout later about who I might have been.
“Oh, well. Let’s see. Your father wanted Tanya ….”
bleeeaaaahhhhh ….
“…. and I wanted Stacey …..”
… ugh! bigger bleeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh ….
“….. so Tracey was a compromise.”
So I guess I should be happy, right? I mean, had they gone the other way, I could’ve ended up as Stanya.
Back in the days when we thought we could get pregnant, my mom would volunteer name choices. Sometimes, she’d list them on random pieces of paper and hand them to me. Or sometimes, she’d choose to discuss them in very public venues. Like Bed, Bath and Beyond about 10 years ago.
“I’ve thought of more names for you.”
I turned away, becoming utterly entralled with a smiley face shower curtain.
“Uh-huh,” I muttered. She kept going. She always DOES.
“How about Chardonnay?”
“WHAT??”
“Chardonnay. And if you have twins — there’s twins in the family, you know (I did) — you can name the other one Chablis.”
“Mom, are you joking? Is this a joke?” I turned back to look at her face. She just smiled and blinked at me.
“No, I’m serious. They’re different!”
“Mom ….. they’re wines. Those are names of wines. You HATE wine and alcohol and all people who drink. Why would you saddle your grandchildren with big ol’ boozy names like that?” I went overboard for effect. “Plus, I’m pretty sure that freak Kathie Lee Gifford named her yappy little dogs Chardonnay and Chablis. And what if one’s a BOY? Are you gonna be all, “GO, CHABLIS!!” at his football games? No. NO.”
A woman standing nearby glanced at me with pity. Then she wisely moved away.
“She’s not a freak.”
“What??”
“Kathie Lee Gifford. She’s not a freak.”
“Okay, Mom. Whatever. But those are dog names. NO.”
We wandered around in silence. She pouted and drooped. Thick air. Uncomfortable. Oh, look. A non-skid shower mat. Fascinating. Oh, a toothbrush holder. I need one of those. Ten minutes go by, with us meandering apart. I thought the subject was dropped. But she crept up behind me.
“Okay. What about Teal?”
“Teal?”
“Yeah!”
“Mom. It’s a color.”
“So?”
“Okaay. Lemme ask you: is it a boy’s name or a girl’s name?”
“Well, you wouldn’t name a boy ‘Teal’, Tracey.”
(Yeah, Tracey. Duh.)
“It’s a girl’s name. It’s pretty. And different.”
“Yeah, Mom. It’s different. You’re right about that.”
“I think colors make nice names.”
“Okaay. Well …. then I like Taupe. Taupe is Teal’s brother. Taupe. Teal and Taupe.”
She rolled her eyes at me, spoke crisply.
“Tracey, you don’t have to be sarcastic.”
“I’m being serious. I like Taupe.”
She stomped off to the bedding section. I looked for pillows to scream into. Another woman close by rolled up with her stroller, whispering and chuckling.
“I’m sorry. Did I just hear your mom say she liked the name Teal?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Uh-huh.” I looked down at her baby. “Just curious …. what’s your baby’s name?”
“Emily.”
I gasped in mock shock.
“What?? Not Teal?”
“Um … no. Just Emily.” She turned to wheel away, scrunched her forehead. “Well, good luck.”
And off she went with her normal baby named Emily.
Seconds later and Mom was back. Round 3. Pouty, defensive. But, still, undaunted.
“Okay. I know one. How about Waverly?”
“Waverly?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you get that off a box of crackers?”
“Crackers? What crackers?”
“Mom, you know what crackers. You always have them in the house. Those ones in the green box? That break apart? It’s a cracker, Mom. A cracker.”
And suddenly, I lost it. I heard myself overenunciating the word “cracker” and I was gone. “Craaac–kerrrr.”
I couldn’t help it. I was crying with laughter. I sneaked a swipe at my face with a bath towel.
Mom was not amused. She was dead serious with these names involving wines and crackers and such. Seemed to me all that was missing was a nice, soft cheese.
“Well, I’m just trying to help,” she sulked.
“Okay, Mom. I know. I know. I’ll think about it,” I lied.
“No, you won’t.”
“Okay. You’re right. I won’t.”
And those were my mom’s name suggestions many years after I became Tracey, so I really need to keep this whole name thing in perspective, I guess. I mean, I could have been TEAL! OR CHABLIS! OR GOD KNOWS WHAT OTHER RANDOM WORD STRUCK HER FANCY!
Still, it’s just so strange to me that something so entwined with your identity is not chosen by you, it’s chosen by people whose tastes you may ending up laughing at years later. Of course, people can legally change their first names and I could have done that long ago, I suppose, and then been forever disowned by my Mom for doing so.
When my sister was pregnant with Piper, she told me the names they were considering. They knew it was a girl and she wanted Piper and he wanted “Jensen.” But Piper is a Piper. She is not a Jensen. Piper is the right name for that girl. It’s perfect. I don’t know if she’ll feel that way when she grows up, but right now, she seems to really love her name. It just suits her.
Sometimes people get exactly the name that suits them. They grow into that name and the fit is perfect, no gaps or tightness or weird puckers. Just a seamless meshing of persona and name.
But sometimes, they don’t. It’s too tight. The wrong color. (Like Teal.) They feel they’re not at their best walking around, wearing that name.
Like me.
So what to do about this? Well, ask My Beloved, of course. Put him on the spot. He LOVES stuff like that!
“Okay. Pretend my name is not Tracey. Give me a different name. What is it?”
Dread, people. A look FULL of dread. And divorce.
Finally, he said:
“Okay. Kate.”
“Why Kate?
“It’s regal and simple.”
“Okay. That’s nice …”
“Or Lucy.”
“Lucy? Why Lucy?”
“I like Lucy. It’s funny.”
Sooo …… is this “Kate” …. (well, nothing simple about that hair — we’ve discussed this fright wig already)
And this “Lucy”??
All righty. There you have it: I AM LUCY KATE!
Now …. do any of YOU feel you were given a raw deal when it comes to your name and, if so, what would you change it to?
Share, please.
Jeannine. Hmmm. Well, most people can’t pronounce it, nor spell it (or don’t take the time to LOOK at my name and sound it out). I am often called “Genie”, once even, Jennifer (still scratching my head over that one).
I went through a phase in 7th or 8th grade where I tried calling myself “Jena”, after Priscilla Presley’s character on Dallas. Yeah, that didn’t stick.
Lolita? Er, no.
Kathy, Tiffany, Amber, Suzie? Nope.
Definitely NOT Stephanie (as mentioned in a previous comment here).
*shrug*
I guess Jeannine fits. Though I’d love to spell it differently. Janine, perhaps?
//”Okay, Kate.”//
Okay, seriously, my laughter is HURTING ME RIGHT NOW
Yup, I could have been Chantal, but my parents didn’t know how to spell it. Or it could have been Chantelle…
But it became Anita instead. I hated that name growing up. But paired with my married last name it’s not so bad now.
Frankly, I don’t know what my name should have been. Just not what it is.
p.s. I really like Kate… and Lucy. Your MB has good taste.
My parents thought my name was “not a very common one”. They liked it, so they picked it. A couple of years ago I could look at the wedding pages of the Sunday paper, and, I kid you not – almost every week see someone my age with the SAME FIRST AND MIDDLE NAME as me. EVERY. WEEK.
“Not that common”, my A$$.
All I know is that my mother’s second and third choices for me were Taragon (spelled just like the spice), or Elspeth.
So, I feel blessed. I love my name. I think it suits me. And it is boatloads better than Elspeth.
My mom told me that when they were trying to decide my name, my birth father wanted Stephanie, which I was an uncommon name at the time. My mother refused and went traditional Roman Catholic….Mary Katherine. Yeah, I should have been a nun. Which is why I’ve always gone by Kathi.
To this day I still use my full given name on any legal paperwork – but I will always enjoy being called Kathi instead of Mary. I think is suits me better.
Teal and Taupe? ROFLMAO!
As I often say to my dd “Thank you for not naming Nini “Destiny or (insert horrid name you’ve just heard here)”.
Your kid’s name is no place to assert your putative cleverness or individuality.
I am one of those lucky people whose name suits them down to the ground. Never wanted to be anything else, though I did toy with the spelling for a few days when I was about seven.
The grandkid’s names are both in the current Top 10. But Nini couldn’t be anything but an Olivia, so that’s okay.
I like my “formal” given name. (erica). It doesn’t rhyme with anything horrible (an important consideration on the schoolyard), it is unusual enough (or at least, was, when I was growing up; it’s more common now) that there weren’t five of us in every school class like the kristins or michelles.
And my name isn’t immediately reducible to some nickname. People don’t know to call me “ricki” unless I ask them. Not like men named Richard who become Rick or Dick or something without their consent.
And my name suits me. It worked when I was a child and it suits me as an adult. It’s serious without the sort of connotation that “bertha” or “hildegarde” would have in this culture and this particular point in time. And it’s not juvenile-sounding. (There is a famous linguist named Bambi Schefelbein. Can you imagine being an adult in a serious discipline, and having the name Bambi?)
my father used to joke that they were going to name me Helga (my family as you might have guessed is German). I’m really glad he was just joking about that.
Well, my first name is William. I was raised a “Billy.” So, around 15 or 16, I asked for everyone to start calling me by my middle name. I like William fine, but Billy is cruel. My byline reads Wm. Cullen ____.
If I had a choice, I might have liked Alexander. Mostly though, I am fond of my names.
if i were a boy, mom wanted to name me Matthew. my dad jokes that i was almost “Mattress” because she was so sure that she wanted “Matt” for my name.
instead they named me after the bar floozy on Gunsmoke.
David would be a very fine name if half the other guys of my generation didn’t also have that name. In school classes, I always had to be addressed by first and last name, just to differentiate me from the inevitable two or three others. My wife has it worse, though, with the given name of Gay because she was born on a Sunday, and “gay” USED to mean joyous and carefree. All 35 years of our marriage, I’ve had to put up with “Must be tough to be married to someone who’s gay, har, har, har…”
And Tracey is a wonderful name, with that gratuitous “e” adding just the right touch.
My mom actually started with “Katie” and worked back to my full given name. So my family knows me as Katie. My friend sold me on “Kate” when we started college.
So, yeah, my full first name has 9 letters. My last name ALSO has 9 letters. In this automated age, bills come to me with part of my name cut off. And when I was in grade school it took me longer to fill in the circles for my name on those darn standardized tests than to answer the questions.
When my brother was expecting his first child, I begged them not to go with a long name. What did they pick? Samantha. That’s 9 letters, again. There must be a sicko gene in my family!
What? No gruyere? No gorgonzola? C’mon, MOM!!! You’ve already got the wine and crackers!
*sigh*
Thank God you never had triplets. She’d have you mothering a walking buffet.
(BTW, this whole post sounds hilariously close to conversations b/n my mother and me [me or I? Whatever.]. I always feel guilty after I yell at her. But what else can be done? She’s just… insane with illogical leaps and “duh” moments. Sheesh.)
I hated my name for a long time. But I can’t think of anything any more perfect now that I’m older. Fits like a glove.
At least Mom did that right. 😉
//David would be a very fine name if half the other guys of my generation didn’t also have that name.//
Dude, tell me about it. I was in college before I was in a class where I didn’t have to use my last initial. The moms and dads of the late 60s must have been very non-original what with the Lisas, Tracys, Stacys, and Jennifers. I had at least two friends who shared those names.
My first name used to be Malynn. It was something my parents made up by combining my maternal grandparent’s first names: May + Lynn (short for Leonard) = Malynn.
The problem was nobody knew how to pronounce it. It was supposed to have emphasis on the second syllable: Muh-LYNN. Not MAY-lynn. But I was always called “Marilynn,” “MAYlynn,” “Mary Lynn,” and every other wrong way of saying it. They never spelled it right either. And even though it was my first name, my parents called me Liz for my middle name: Elizabeth.
So, when my husband and I took his middle name as our last name, (He didn’t want me to have his last name and I didn’t want him to take my name … long story) I changed my first name to Isabella. Much better! Fits me better and everyone can say it. But I’m still Liz . . .
Tracey – I think you look angelic with your Madonna hair and poufy dress. Just beautiful!
Please remember what I said in one of your posts a couple weeks or so back.
I prefer to go by the name Celtic Twilight.
Thanks.
roo- Taragon? Taragon?? That is insane. 😉
AS — /instead they named me after the bar floozy on Gunsmoke./ Hahahahaahaha!
Dave — Ah, yes. The gratuitous “E”. How I ENJOY that E. SO much. The cleverness of it, and the constant LIFELONG misspelling. Yes, I LOVE it.
Chai-rista — I like Isabella. And Liz, too.
red — Yes. How quickly we forget. I mean, “Celtic Twilight.”
I was Lily Whitebottom or something. Guess I’ll change it to “Lucy” Whitebottom now … because it’s funny.
Like Red, I am sticking with my name of a few weeks back…Princess Starshine.
My real name…I’ve never hated it or loved it. I have sort of been indifferent. I am named after a baseball player from the Cardinals, Mike Shannon, and although my mom thought she was being very original, there were two other Shannon’s in my kindergarten class, my best friend in jr. high and a different best friend in high shool were both named Shannon, and there were like 5 of us in my graduating class.
Her other choices were Ryan and Sean…for a girl OR a boy. If she wanted to go for the Irish stock, my vote would have been Megan.
I have a quesiton on this name thing…what is with the last names as first names thing? They sound like little law firms. Someone explain this, please!
Since I have decided to remain an anonymous presence in the internet, this post may make no sense, but here goes. My mother made my name up. It was sort of close to the name of another girl at church, who was named after her father, a kind of feminine version of a masculine name. Anyway, my mother altered that and gave me a name that is so rare, I’ve never met anyone with my name. At first I thought it was cool. I was the only “blank” anyone had ever met. And everyone said it was a pretty name and it really is. But frankly, years of spelling it, pronouncing it, explaining it, has gotten VERY, very old. Before marriage my last name was simple, but now I have a very unusual last name as well, so it often feels like I spend my whole life spelling my name for people. In addition, with the wonder (and trama) of the internet, ANYONE can find me. One word in google and there I am. (Should have never been quoted in a magazine article.) Fortunately, there are now A FEW people out there with my name, but still. Anyone who want to find me, can and they do..In conclusion, parents, think twice about saddling a child with a wierd first name. I would LOVE to be Laura. Which is my middle name.
Chick Voice — I am now DYING to know your first name.
Feel free to email me. 😉
I was almost named Bronwyn. Boy, there’s a name I had no chance of seeing on a souvenir mug at Disneyland. Or, because mom was a “Dark Shadows” freak at the time, Cosette and Victoria were considerations.
Shannon is juuuuuuuust fine.
“Boy, there’s a name I had no chance of seeing on a souvenir mug at Disneyland.”
HA HA HA HA!! That’s REALLY clever.
I too had no chance of seeing my name on a souvenir mug. I was always “SOLD OUT”.
My Ladybug is unusually named as well; though I think it’s a perfectly lovely name, she can’t find souvenir anything either. (Of course, you can spell “Ashleigh” three different ways, find Caleb or Taylor or Kaitlin, but not the Ladybug’s name.) On the bright side, I bought her a personalized keychain made to order and was instantly a prince among boyfriends.
Me, I’m a Michael – only one of the five most popular names in the English-speaking world since WW2. To this day, a sharp “MICHAEL!” in a supermarket will yank my head round like a tetherball. (It’s always the Michaels who are gettin’ in trouble.)
That is what makes me sad about my granddaughter’s name…the lack of souvenir items she will find. I remember how cool that was as a kid. But Alorah…not gonna happen too often.
P.S. Chardonnay and Chablis are stripper names.
Chai-rista — True ….