Writer's Block: Same Name
May. 18th, 2009 08:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Not both and last, but this reminds me of the Story of my Given Name.
Long ago, during the magical time known as the 1970s, in a mystical land known as the Bronx, lived two young Jamaican immigrants who were married to each other, very much in love, and so poor they could only afford one magazine at a time. They were cuddled up together reading their magazine and they read about an African author, whose daughter had a name they liked very much, and they decided that if they had a daughter they would bestow upon her this special name.
They had a baby, which was a girl, to whom they gave this name, and who grew up to be me. Ever after, when I unroll my full name and people blink at the cascade of syllables, I say, "I was named during the '70s", and they laugh and nod in understanding.
(Also, some years later I met a woman a few years my senior who might possibly be the person I'm named after.)
Not both and last, but this reminds me of the Story of my Given Name.
Long ago, during the magical time known as the 1970s, in a mystical land known as the Bronx, lived two young Jamaican immigrants who were married to each other, very much in love, and so poor they could only afford one magazine at a time. They were cuddled up together reading their magazine and they read about an African author, whose daughter had a name they liked very much, and they decided that if they had a daughter they would bestow upon her this special name.
They had a baby, which was a girl, to whom they gave this name, and who grew up to be me. Ever after, when I unroll my full name and people blink at the cascade of syllables, I say, "I was named during the '70s", and they laugh and nod in understanding.
(Also, some years later I met a woman a few years my senior who might possibly be the person I'm named after.)
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Date: 2009-05-18 07:17 pm (UTC)Also, also... the first time I went to vote, ever, I went up to the desk and was asked my name. I gave first name, last name. "Oh, is your middle name Anne or Erica?" It's Erica. It was almost Anne. (I was named after my aunt Anne Erica, my mother's youngest sister. Mum decided against making my middle name Anne on the grounds that the sister of my father's that she hated most (he has ten of them) has the middle name Anne and "I didn't want that bitch thinking I named the baby after her." Ah, family politics.)
My first name is an awfully common one among women around my age, thanks to That Bloody Beatles Song.