What's in a Name

What’s in a Name?

 

Holy crumb! Who’da ever thought that once you get a name hung on you, it sticks no matter what you do. The thing is that once you get used to using a particular name for a person, it doesn’t ever really go away. The other day I got a notice on facebook that it was Davita’s birthday. So like an idiot I said Happy birthday Kimmie. Well she used to be a Kim or Kimmie as we called her because she was so cute and tiny when she was a youngster. A couple of years ago when she showed up on my facebook page, she explained her name change to me, which was quite legitimate and actually quite a lovely story.

The very first friend I ever had in this world was my cousin Hilda. In fact, she was my only friend and we played together and made mischief together for the longest time. Well, we all grew up and went our separate ways. She moved out west, got married and suddenly became Katherine or Kate. What the – How’d that happen? I guess she didn’t like her first name so she uses her middle one. I suppose that’s legitimate too, but we met a couple o’ times in the last few years an’ I looked her in the eye an’ I can tell you, she was still Hilda, no matter what she calls herself.

You’d think I’d know how this works by now. But I didn’t even know my own wife’s name was Catherina until we started signing papers (like a marriage license). I knew her as Ria-which wasn’t her name neither. That was short for Maria, which was her middle name. Who knew? Turns out there’s more dad-blamed Katherines, Catherinas and Kates in our family than you can shake a stick at.

Well I don’t care what anybody says. Catherina is still Ria, Katherine is still Hilda and Davita is still Kimmie an’ you can take that to the bank!

I suppose I could start on the nicknames we used to all each other when we was growin’ up. Somebody started callin’ us by our fathers’ first names, unless we’d invented a better one – (like Juicy Selway or Mugga come to mind). It got so we didn’t know anybody’s real first name. I even get confused sometimes today.

Well gol dang it, I’ll call ‘em whatever they wanna be called but they ain’t gonna tell me what their real names are, cause I know. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.