As I mentioned yesterday, my sister and I were visiting relatives this past weekend. We were chatting about names and who’s named after what relative etc.
My sister, Kathleen, is named after our grand aunt, Kathleen. Until Saturday, we referred to her as our great aunt, but now we know better. She was my grandmother’s sister. My sister is only Kathleen to family or people who’ve known her since before she entered the 4th grade. It was there, that the teacher, overwhelmed with Kathleens in her class, gave her the nickname Kathy. We have two other Kathys in our family and we refer to them still by their last names – “Cathy Jackman” or “Kathy O’Kane” so we can keep them straight. We had to keep my sister as Kathleen or we’d have had two Kathy O’Kanes.
I was named after my great-grandmother’s sister Ellen. My grandmother, Helen, was supposed to be named Ellen but when her father took her to the priest to be baptized (no moms allowed), he put a “h” in front of Ellen (blamed on his brogue) and she came home Helen. You couldn’t really tell the priest there was a mistake, so she remained Helen. My niece Helen is named after her.
We have a number of Noras in our family. My Gramdma O’Kane was Nora, my cousin Molly has it as a middle name, I have another cousin named Nora and Saturday we met the newest Nora, a 7th month old, who is a cousin, twice removed (again, learned this on Saturday). I love how we sound so fancy with all the grands, greats and removeds.
My daughter Kathryn is not necessarily named after anyone but luckily both sides were able to say there was a Kathryn on that side, so we pleased everyone. People ask how we chose the spelling and I like to say it is because we weren’t too sure how smart she would be so we went for the shorter version (Kathryn versus Katherine). She loves that.
Naming a child isn’t easy. So many things to consider. First you have to weed through all the names you hate because of their association with another person by that name and then you have to worry whether people will be able to pronounce the name correctly. Is there a bad rhyme that could cause the child embarrassment? Growing up, I always thought my name, Ellen O’Kane, was easy enough but I had people call me Eileen Oaken. Or they would say O-con-y, instead of O’Kane. Then, when I got married, I thought Motley was pretty straight forward but I get Moatley all the time.
It thought Jim Croce’s “I Got A Name” was appropriate for today.
spooningwithsmokey 