Happy Friday, fellow travelers, and welcome to the Open Mic!
I’m still seeking artists for guest posts, but in the meantime, I am loving our discussions. If you’re new here or have forgotten how the “you talk” mics work: I pose a question, we all talk in the comments. Feel free to reply to each other directly — engage a friend or a stranger!
Today I’m thinking about names, and I want to know more about yours (and about you). You have two options, based on exercises we did at IWL; feel free to choose one or do both.
Christmas gift for my sister, 2002
Question one: What is your name? Where does it come from, and who named you? What does it mean? Do you like it?
Question two: Describe yourself using words/phrases that begin with the letters of your name. For example, JANE might write judicious in use of adverbs, adores grape popsicles, never kissed anyone in public, elegant.
For each of these questions, feel free to use as many or as few of your names as you like (first, last, middle, nickname, etc).
Have fun!
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 
Ré – regularly (and freakishly) picks up on other people’s emotions, enterprising spirit.
I didn’t have much to work with! But this feels right. 🙂
Ooh, I like it. 🙂
My grandpa named me. He also named my mom, Eliza.
loving heart of mine
is a burden
sometimes
although I would never give it up, or my
high happiness
set point.
I come back from my lows still grateful to be
alive.
Such beautiful poetry, my beautiful friend. 🙂
(I was in love with Al Pacino during his “Serpico” days, and I wrote a poem for him that spelled out his name down the side. Sigh… 🙂 )
Hee, ah, the joys of writing that kind of poetry about someone else! 😉 Sigh indeed. 🙂
How clever – great poem.
Thank you, Alan! 🙂
Sherrill Anne – called Sherry. Named by my parents, I was told that it was the name of a tugboat in a book or a movie in the 1930’s or ’40’s (My dad was totally into boats, so I guess it could be true.) Strange yes? Sherrill/Sherry is a derivative of the french word cherie, accent over the first e, and means “darling.” I’ve always liked Sherry, but Sherrill always sounds too formal to me.
Formal maybe, but I love the way your name is spelled! It looks so good– as good as it sounds. I think Sherry is cool, too. I get into names. That’s one of the reasons I named my daughter Jasmine– I liked the way it sounded and looked. 🙂
Re, I think the reason my given name seems formal to me is that the only time I was called Sherrill was on the first day of each school year — and Sherrill Anne when my dad had a bone to pick with me. I always knew I was in trouble when he used my full name:)
Sherry, that is a wonderful story (and cool name)! It reminds me of a delightful short story I read recently, an old one by Elizabeth Enright in her collection The Riddle of the Fly and Other Stories. It was about a girl who hated her name, Bonnadilla, because it was so strange and her mother said she got it off an apartment building. Then the girl grows up and moves to the city and one day sees that apartment building with her own name on it, Bonnadilla, now faded with age. She talks her way into the building and meets an elderly resident whose father built the apartments, and it turned out he named them after a train car. She later learns that the train car is named after a small town called Bonnadilla Flats, and one day when she’s passing through, she gets off the train and goes there, and hears the story of the woman the town was named for. Such a lovely meandering story. 🙂
Sounds like a fun story, Lisa. I’ll have to look for it. And speaking of books, I am glad you got to read *Out of Love* and *Happy All the Time*. I used to never buy fiction, thinking it would always be available at our library when I wanted to reread it. WRONG! My library weeds the collection frequently, and along the way these two favorites disappeared. So I ended up buying them on Amazon. So much fun to go back and read them again. I think Daisy is my hero. The way she took a simple visit with Min in her dysfunctional home, and turned it all cozy and charming (and functioning) again warms my heart every time. A nester without equal.
I’ve been loving Elizabeth Enright’s stories, but they can be hard to find. Her children’s books are wonderful and they remain in print, but not the short stories.
I’m pretty inspired by Daisy too… and Min, in fact, though I don’t want to live in her house! ;b Thank you again for recommending these lovely books! Happy All the Time is now on my shelves, and Out of Love will soon join it. 🙂
Alan…..apparently I was to be called Brian but my Mum changed her mind right at the last minute. I think it’s an old fashioned name though I am hearing of others recently. There are no other “Alan” s in our family tree and probaby never willbe as modern tastes move on. Unique !! 🙂
Artistic – life-long learner – amiable – n n n ? noble (hahaha, relating to my nose 🙂 )
I know one Alan and two Allens, all my age or younger, though the latter two are both children of Asian immigrants. 🙂
Wonder what made your mum change her mind!
I remember my parents telling me that they thought I was going to be a boy, and if I was they were going to name me Raymond. Glad I wasn’t and they didn’t!