The Name Game

A new blog friend of mine recently gave me inspiration in thinking about what we (and others) call ourselves. Names are important I think.

When hubby (Kevin) and I (Kate) learned we were pregnant we pored through baby name books and searched and seached for the names we like best AND agreed on. One this that came out was that we both had a preference for names starting with K, boy and girl names.Since we did not find out the gender of either child until the day they were born, we ended up with a "short list" (sort of) of both male and female names and figured when we met the little critter, we would make our final decision.

Our first-born was a boy and funny thing was we really didn't have any girl names we felt 100% about. We had three boy names on the short list and ultimately chose Kiefer as his first which in German is a barrel maker or cooper which is Kevin's mother's maiden name. Kiefer's middle name is my mother's maiden name and now he goes by a diminutive of that and is called Mac as a nickname. We love it and think he does too.

A few years later when we were expecting baby # 2 we asked the then two-ish Mac what name he might choose if he had a baby brother or sister. Sadly I don't remember what he chose but thank God she ended up a girl because his pick for a baby brother was "Gunpowder"!

Our daughter's name is Karli which means "purest snow" in Greek and since we live in a very wintery wonderland it suited her (February birthday and all). Her middle name is also a family name from my mother's side.

Dear husband is Kevin as I said above...he is called Kev by many and in high school had the nickname "Cakes", I think because he has a great ass (OK, so maybe I'm biased)! Our pet name for each other is Bubba. Now how romantic is that!

Now me, I was born Katherine but growing up my paternal grandmother nicknamed me "Tink" which was the diminutive for a Russian variation of Katherine, Katrinka. As I grew up I had reasons to dislike the nickname (merciless teasing from playground brats didn't help "Stinky Tinky" and so on...) and when I finally ventured into the business world I felt I needed a more "mature" name so became Kate.

It has stuck and although I do feel it fits me and I like it, I sometimes now wish I had left well enough alone and kept Tink which is who I will be "inside" forever. I've actually asked my immediate family to go back to calling me Tink if they want. My grandmother, God rest her soul, never adopted the name Kate and called me Tink to her dying day.

As my new friend (also Kate) pointed out, names are important. And how we see ourselves and call ourselves is important. Do me a favor, make sure you call yourself good things only. No bad names. Deal?