Do you like your name? I love my name. I think it's the best name ever. But I haven't always felt that way. Here's why I have struggled in the past...
Drama follows me around like a dust cloud follows Pigpen around. We are inseparable. And I don't even have to try. When I walk in the door, you can bet that drama will follow. And there's a good reason for it. My mother named me after a popular soap opera star of the 60's. Please tell me, when you are named after a soap star, aren't you supposed to be dramatic?? Isn't that my namesake?
Anywho, when I was young, like 8 I guess, my life as I knew it fell apart. I had just moved to Long Island and all of my friends were either Jewish or Catholic. No exceptions. And by friends I mean kids whose lunch table I would sit at the end of and hope they didn't move away as soon as I set down my tray.
That year, all of my catholic "friends" started doing their First Communions. Or taking out their communions, maybe? I don't actually know the lingo or technicalities of how that happens, but that's what happened. And apparently when you take out your First Communion, you get to change your name. And every single girl I knew changed her name to Marie. So you can imagine the shame and horror of being the only Kristin in a school full of Maries!
So I went home from school the day I found this out, absolutely bugged. I demanded that my mother explain HOW they could name me something as lame as Kristin, when I now had to go to school with all Maries?!? Couldn't she and dad have had some foresight when they were naming me? More than going with a popular tv actress? Shouldn't they have known that at some point all the other girls would change their name to Marie??
I carried on like that for a long time. I even looked into how I could get my name changed. Mom said I wouldn't be allowed to do it until I was an adult. I made a note in my diary that the day I turned 18, I would be changing my name to Marie Le Kimball.
After a while, my embarrasment died down, and all the girls at school went back to their original names for some reason, so I decided to make do with Kristin.
To add injury to insult, my middle name is Le, pronounced Lee. This has brought me ridicule my entire life. Mostly from my brother and my husband. I've always been Kristin The Kimball to Stephen. So a couple of years ago I asked my mom why she went with the L-e spelling rather than the more popular Lee or Leigh. She looked at me and said, "Huh, I guess I just misspelled it." Which is awesome, because I don't have nearly enough insecurity issues!!
P.S. This conversation with mom made me curious about the spelling of one of my sister's name, which is spelled differently too. When I asked mom about that spelling, she laughed her I-know-you've-got-me laugh and said, "Huh, I must have misspelled that one too!" But don't ask who the sister is. I'll never tell...
11 comments:
The sister with the other misspelling is Michele. Where's the other "L"? And if you want to talk about traumatic name issues try being a kid named "Shauna Janae Foster Kimball" I lied for most of my life and only fessed up to one middle name. I LOVE my name now. As a kid, not so much. Iv'e alwys wondered about your middle name. Thanks for clearing it up.
Spelling and grammatical correction-I've always-
Come on Blogger, get a spell check for comments.
Who ever knew that your middle name was spelled Le, I didn't? I guess I have probably rarely written your full name out so I donit think that I have probably ever know that? Did you know that my middle name only had one "n" instead of 2 which most Lyn's have?
Man..... Mom must have been on some major drugs when she named all of us. To have 3 misspellings,an Ernest and Caitlin with a "C". That's pretty cool!!
Oh yeah I also meant to mention she gave one of us the worlds LOOOOOONGEST name.
Michele ... we don't ever, ever, ever, ever, publish or say out loud my middle name.
Nice that you all feel cheated with mispelling, but try walking around with the big "E" all your life and see how you like it.
Sorry...i'll never mention the "E" word again.
Um, HELLO, FOSTER!!!!!!!!
Just to set the record straight, I don't consider Michele's name to be misspelled. Neither does mom.
Yeah, that's a bad misspelling. Sorry about that. When my Grandma had my dad and his twin brother 61 years ago, she was surprised to have twins. She named one James, and the doctors claimed she named the other one Jay. Well, she doesn't remember naming him Jay because everyone knows Jay is just a nickname for James, so why would you name your kids the same name? So they are still Jim and Jay. Sad, huh?
I used to hate my name but now I love it. I love it a lot more than Ernest, Le(ame) or Foster.
I used to pine for the name Kristin. Christine would have sufficed as well, but nothing was more desirable than Jenny.
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