I've been thinking a lot about names lately. (No, I'm not pregnant, but given that I'm turning 30 in 3 weeks and hope to have one other child in my lifetime, things better improve soon-ish if it's going to happen.) Not only children's names, but what my child names her fuzzy-friended "children".
Tessa is into horses & webkinz, hardcore, but she "names" just about everything. You would think, being 8, she'd stick to the tradtional--Spot, Fluffy, Patches, etc. Nope, not my kid. The webkinz I can remember are: Kurt, Sean, Sammy, Cody, Draco, Challenger, & Charger. There's a couple more, but I can't remember what she's called them.
When I was a kid, I had a rocking horse named Rocky, a stuffed cat named Molly (after my own kitty), and equally traditional names for everything else. The most creative I got was naming my white stuffed monkey Sugar because he looked so sweet. My kid? She names things for characters she likes (Kurt is her favorite on Glee), she uses Latin (Draco is a dragon), and some of it--like Sean & Cody--I have NO idea how she comes up with.
I've tried to be more creative as I've gotten older. Our cats are alphabetical--Annie, Bryn & Clee, short for Cliodhna, from a book I liked. Tessa is a take on the Irish form of Theresa. In her middle name, Felicity means "happy" and the May is for my grandmother, Dorothy May. The girl name we've chosen for a future child, Kyra Isobel-Jane, is unique without being over-the-top. We're still discussing boy names--right now Aiden and Erik top the list.
What does the future hold for my creative Tessa? Who knows. She's already shown more imagination than I did at her age, though she seems to be much more firmly grounded in reality than I ever was. When she was 3 we tried to tell her that pink milk came from cows fed on strawberries, and she didn't buy that for a second. We have only the most tenacious hold on Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, and that only because she wants to "play along." She answersed the dentist's question of "what do you want to be when you grow up?" with the unconventional "foreign corresspondant." (I cannot begin to explain the look on the woman's face at that one.)
I'm thankful for my creative girl. She amazes me daily at her ability to think outside the box, and I pray she always has that quality.
5 comments:
I wanted to name my youngest Ethan Tecumseh after the great Shawnee chief who came closer than any of the American indigenous peoples to forming a strong Indian Confederacy that might have actually turned the tide of manifest destiny. Alas, you-know-who nixed it.
Foreign correspondent! I love that! =)
you-know-who was right. Ethan Phillip sounds way better.
:-PPPPPPP
My 3 yo names everything "Ceah" (see-uh) and "Super Krypto". Everything. But she did break the norm and name her bitty baby "Molly".
My almost 5 yo goes off the attributes of the animal-brown dog = "Brownie". Horse has a flower-shaped pupil? = "Flower". ;) She wants to be a veterinarian. "It's a very important job" she says. But she shies away from petting animals. Silly girl.
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