Life in the time of Jennifers

Over the Thanksgiving weekend I dove into the storage closet at mom and dad's house.  It is filled with the boxed childhoods of two little girls in the late 70s and 80s.  Amazing.  I found box after box of Barbies (mostly nude, or dressed like streetwalkers in training), stuffed animals, board games and baby dolls.  We were truly lucky children to have this playtime bounty. 

In one box I found my stash of dolls, and as I sorted through them looking for my childhood favorite, I realized it should have come as no surprise to my mother when I gave my boys unusual names.  Really, I'd given her a clear sign of my inclinations.  My two favorite dolls, my most prized babies were named Baby Anda and Bonanza.  See.  

Maybe my love of uncommon names came from being one of many Lauras in any class.  I remember feeling trapped by the frequency with which I encountered "I'm Laura too!" and frustrated by the tendency of teachers to resort to using surnames, especially since my surname is equally ubiquitous.  Instead of being just Laura, I got elevated to Laura Williams.  Yeah, it still felt about as exotic as white bread.  Sure it wasn't as common as Jennifer, but I only narrowly escaped that, since it was my mother's first choice name.  (I have always thanked my grandma for talking her out if it.)

I know my mom's love of the simple, elegant and familiar names was partly based in the frustration she had with her own name as a child.  She has told me many times she hated having to spell her name and resented people shortening it to a more common similar name.  And her name wasn't even a terribly unusual name, it just wasn't common in her generation.  

I was the opposite, I longed for a name that stood out, that begged to be spelled and required people to ask for me to spell it. Probably only because  mine never did.  At one point, as my mother will never let me forget, in the height of my surly bleached hair, dark eye liner, thrift store shopping punk badass stage, I wished my name were Skye Blu.  Yeah, I know, but remember I was 13, and that fit more with my internal struggle to be cool than Laura Ann.

Over time, I grew to love my own name.  It may not be exotic, but it is lovely.  Even the meaning is charming.  And more importantly, it is who I am, who I have grown to be.  I no longer look to change my name to match an image of myself because I am now comfortable with who I am.  It is entirely appropriate that I married a man named David, and probably even more appropriate that we chose to give our children less usual names.   Once Dave commented how funny it looked on the return address stamp with our four names lined up.  He says you can see the frustration of two parents with common names in the names we chose for our children.

But as I was saying, my mom should not have been surprised when I told her the name I'd picked for my first son, and her initial immediate response "That's a dog name" (no, not Rex, Spot or Lassie) only goes to show that my choice of names may not fit for everyone.  But it fits for me and more importantly my sons.  They are both very proud of their names.  At least until they enter their own years of teenage turmoil and wish to be called Steve or Michael.