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Roses, by any other names
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Roses, by any other names
  Have you ever tried to imagine yourself by another name? I used to all the time, in junior high school. In junior high school I was Susan Miller. I wanted desperately to be Bernadette, or Tina, or Ginger—anything more exotic than Susan Miller. I made a half-hearted attempt, once, announcing to my mother that I would henceforth be called Suzette. Or was it Suzanne? I can’t remember now. She said OK, then we both promptly forgot about it.  I think I thought that changing my name could change who I was. I wanted to be exciting—what 12-year-old girl doesn’t? The biggest problem, then and now, is that I am not just named Susan, I am Susan. I look like a Susan, I feel like a Susan, and I can’t imagine myself being anything but a Susan. I can’t imagine Micheal being anything but a Micheal—not even a Michael. My siblings, my children, my grandchildren, close friends—I can’t imagine any of them by any names other than their own. The people we know and love become synonymous with their names. Millions of people are named Michael (not so many are named Micheal, but they sound the same). I know dozens of other Michaels. I call them by their names, or Mike if they wish, and it’s just a name. But Micheal is more than a name to me. It’s the word that means the man with whom I have lived for 33 years, the father of my children, the one who makes me laugh when I feel bad, Remover of Large Bugs, Fixer of Busted Appliances. More of a title, really, than a name.  Likewise, Sean and Eric are more than names—those are the words that mean dear to my heart before I ever saw them, and forever. They are words for sweet, warm little bodies cuddling against mine, and for great, tall men whose intelligence and humor and strength and character I admire with a mixture of pride and astonishment. How many of us have talked late into the night about what to name our unborn children and had no rational reason for rejecting a perfectly acceptable name suggested by our spouse, except that we went to grade school with a child by that name, who spat on other kids and picked his nose, and that name will forever mean spitting and nose-picking and we could never, ever name our child that?  Names are important. We put a lot of thought into naming both our boys. Before Sean was born, we decided we wanted an old name, a name with history. I, personally, wanted a name that didn’t lend itself to a silly nickname or a diminutive ending in “y.” I know too many grown, even old, men and women who are still being called little-boy and little-girl names because a diminution of their given name that was cute when they were six could never be shed. And we wanted a name whose origin and meaning was acceptable—no one likes looking up their name in a book of names when they’re 14 and discovering it means “big hole in the ground,” or “pile of rocks.” We thought and talked and researched, and came up with a perfect name for Sean—Adam.  He’d be Adam today, if it weren’t for Micheal’s younger brother. Their son was born two weeks before Sean, and they named him Adam. First I was angry, even though my anger was completely unreasonable—they lived in another state, and we hadn’t told our families what we planned to name our first child. Then I tried to convince myself we could still name our child Adam, but of course we couldn’t. The strange thing is, I can’t imagine that I ever meant to call him Adam. He doesn’t look anything like an Adam. Adam would just sound silly on him. Before Eric was born, the criteria was basically the same, with an addition: His name needed to go with Sean’s. That is, I didn’t want a traditional name paired with, say, “Chance” or “Dakota.” Fortunately, none of Micheal’s siblings bore boy-children before I delivered Eric. Now, I can’t imagine Sean or Eric being anything but Sean and Eric. Micheal being anything but Micheal. And me? I’m happy with Susan. It suits me. I did finally get a new name, though. “Mama” isn’t as exotic as the ones I wanted when I was 12, but there are only two people in the whole world who can call me by it, and it’s so lovely to hear when they do.  |
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