Anyone Want to Journal With Me?

[fairfarmhand]

So I found a list of journaling prompts with regards to one's personal history. I love projects like this. Maybe this is my ego showing, but I hope that my kids would enjoy it someday. Mostly because I wish I had these questions asked about my mother and Grandmother. I thought it might be a fun thing to do as a group. Is anyone game? If not, that's fine. But I did think it would help us get to know each other better. 

I have the master list in a Google Doc and will paste my daily answers in my Google Doc. 

I'd hope to post a prompt two or three times a week. Not daily though, because I know how busy I am, and I'm sure many of you are the same. I want as many as possible to be able to participate and giving a few days for people to respond will help.

 

Here is the first prompt.

1. Write about your name. Where did it come from? What does it mean?

Feel free to keep your actual name private, but share the story of how you were named. You can also include things like whether or not you like your name, do you like the way it's pronounced and spelled? Was there a name you wished that you had in childhood? Did you take your dh's name when you married (if you're married)? How did you feel about that? What influenced your decision about that? 

[Ausmumof3]

Did you mean for us to share stories in response?  I have one about naming.  My mum and dad thought they’d agreed on the name however they both thought it was a slightly different name.  Dad filled out the birth certificate.  At a certain point I got tired of explaining why my name was spelled one way and said another so I mostly use a short name whenever possible now.

[OhioMomof3]

I'd like to do this type of journal. 🙂

[J-rap]

I'm in!  My name story isn't too interesting...  My parents took turns every other child choosing a girl's name or a boy's name.  For me, my dad got to choose the girl's name and my mother got to choose the boy's name.  My dad won!  My name is a very American 1960's name.  Actually, my mother's generation has this name too.  But no generation younger than mine has it.  Pretty plain.  🙂 

ETA:  As far as your other questions:  I did take my husband's name, although he probably would have taken mine too.  But in my generation, we generally took our husband's names.  I love the idea of a family sharing the same last name, but I really have no preference on whether it's the husband's or the wife's or a new last name altogether.  I think sharing the same last name is unifying. I love my husband's (therefore mine) last name.  Much more interesting than my old last name.  I'm pretty sure that my maiden name was one of the most common last names in the country.

My first name is fine, whatever.  When I was growing up, I wanted to be called Summer.  (I really wanted to be a hippie!)

Edited September 2, 2020 by J-rap

[fairfarmhand]

1 hour ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Did you mean for us to share stories in response?  I have one about naming.  My mum and dad thought they’d agreed on the name however they both thought it was a slightly different name.  Dad filled out the birth certificate.  At a certain point I got tired of explaining why my name was spelled one way and said another so I mostly use a short name whenever possible now.

Yes, share stories!

[Selkie]

I grew up with a fairly unusual (at that time) first name and a very common last name (along the same lines as Smith or Jones).

Right around the time I was in college, my first name became pretty popular.

Then I got married and took my dh's name, which is very uncommon.

So I went from always having to spell my first name for people when I was a kid, to always having to spell my last name for people as an adult.🤷‍♀️

 

[fairfarmhand]

My name is a month name that has no family ties whatsoever. I never met another girl with my name growing up, and only met a handful of individuals with my name. It was nice that I didn't have to add an initial to distinguish myself from my classmates. In my first grade class there were 5 Jennifers and 3 Kimberlys so it was nice to have an unusual but not weird name. 

 

I always wished I'd been named Jessica when I was a girl. I just really liked that name. I always was called "Rachel" for some reason when I was a kid by multiple people in multiple places. It was disconcerting. 

 

I did take my dh's last name when I married. I liked the idea of joining him in his life. And my maiden name was hard to spell, with a first letter that I thought looked goofy in cursive. I was glad to trade it for my married initial. It improved the appearance of my signature, I thought.

[J-rap]

17 minutes ago, fairfarmhand said:

My name is a month name that has no family ties whatsoever. I never met another girl with my name growing up, and only met a handful of individuals with my name. It was nice that I didn't have to add an initial to distinguish myself from my classmates. In my first grade class there were 5 Jennifers and 3 Kimberlys so it was nice to have an unusual but not weird name. 

 

I always wished I'd been named Jessica when I was a girl. I just really liked that name. I always was called "Rachel" for some reason when I was a kid by multiple people in multiple places. It was disconcerting. 

 

I did take my dh's last name when I married. I liked the idea of joining him in his life. And my maiden name was hard to spell, with a first letter that I thought looked goofy in cursive. I was glad to trade it for my married initial. It improved the appearance of my signature, I thought.

Hmmm... May or June?  April?  🙂 

[fairfarmhand]

1 minute ago, J-rap said:

Hmmm... May or June?  April?  🙂 

Actually it’s April. Did get gently teased with it but nothing terribly annoying.  
 

no I wasn’t born in April. My birthdays this month. 
 

I like month names. I’ve run into a couple January’s in the last few years and I love that!

[J-rap]

3 minutes ago, fairfarmhand said:

Actually it’s April. Did get gently teased with it but nothing terribly annoying.  
 

no I wasn’t born in April. My birthdays this month. 
 

I like month names. I’ve run into a couple January’s in the last few years and I love that!

Aw, that's such a pretty name!  I've always liked month names too.  I've had friends with the names April - June.  Actually, I know someone named August as well! 

ETA:  That reminds me...  My kids and I used to imagine what herbs would make good names:  Basil, Rosemary, Sage...  🙂 

Edited September 2, 2020 by J-rap

[fairfarmhand]

22 minutes ago, J-rap said:

Aw, that's such a pretty name!  I've always liked month names too.  I've had friends with the names April - June.  Actually, I know someone named August as well! 

ETA:  That reminds me...  My kids and I used to imagine what herbs would make good names:  Basil, Rosemary, Sage...  🙂 

My dd says she’s going to grow up and have a bunch of cats named after herbs. 
 

there’s a family at church whose 2 girls are named sage and hazel.

[Moonhawk]

Woman of the earth, of biblical fame, and one other thing, the second oldest name.

So I was a "surprise" baby. My parents had been married all of 2 months and it was assumed my mom could not have more children, which was fine with my dad as he didn't want any (and they were in their 40s). So she was very nervous to tell him the news. Thankfully he took it ecstatically and then spent the rest of the evening and into the night planning my life, lol.

He was going through various names if I was a boy or if I was a girl, etc, that first night as they were lying in bed. My mom handles pregnancy HORRIBLY, so she just wanted him to shut up and wasn't paying attention much. He was asking her, "What about this?, What about that? Does this sound good?" etc. And when he asked her for her own ideas, she said it was like my name appeared in the darkness in front of her and forced her to say it. "Eve." And then she went to sleep. 

The next morning the first thing my dad told her was that if I was a girl, Eve was definitely the best and only name that would work. 

Tada, it's nice to meet you 🙂

I had a plaque on my wall growing up going into the meaning of my name: "Life, or the Mother Of All Living". It made an impression on me from a very young age. It's influenced me in that I feel a deep personal call to be a better steward environmentally (Eve and the garden) and to be a positive force to protect others and help people/things grow. Not perfectly, obviously, but sometimes I ask myself if I'm living up to my name. (Also, if you saw the frivolous thread, you may understand why I chose the tree of life ring). 

There is a lot of teasing that has come with it, but it was nice growing up not to meet very many others. Now it seems there are a bunch of celebrities using it as a stage name since it "stands out." And, it's cute meeting little Avas and Evas.

I love meeting Adams and commiserating with them. I always start the conversation with, "Do you get a lot of Adam and Eve jokes?" and they always are guarded in their response until I tell them my own name, and it's always been instant connection, lol.

I did take my husbands name socially for about 2 years after marriage. But I filled out the marriage paperwork wrong so it wasn't legal, lol, and it sounds *really* bad actually with my first name (it sounds like a donkey bray, honestly), so I switched back to my maiden name socially and only really respond/intro myself with it at child activities just to avoid confusion about mismatched last names.

(Ok guys I'm coming off completely egocentric here but I swear I'm just procrastinating and no one has ever asked me this question, not even DH. I only get asked "Where's Adam?" LOL)

[fairfarmhand]

10 hours ago, Moonhawk said:

Woman of the earth, of biblical fame, and one other thing, the second oldest name.

So I was a "surprise" baby. My parents had been married all of 2 months and it was assumed my mom could not have more children, which was fine with my dad as he didn't want any (and they were in their 40s). So she was very nervous to tell him the news. Thankfully he took it ecstatically and then spent the rest of the evening and into the night planning my life, lol.

He was going through various names if I was a boy or if I was a girl, etc, that first night as they were lying in bed. My mom handles pregnancy HORRIBLY, so she just wanted him to shut up and wasn't paying attention much. He was asking her, "What about this?, What about that? Does this sound good?" etc. And when he asked her for her own ideas, she said it was like my name appeared in the darkness in front of her and forced her to say it. "Eve." And then she went to sleep. 

The next morning the first thing my dad told her was that if I was a girl, Eve was definitely the best and only name that would work. 

Tada, it's nice to meet you 🙂

I had a plaque on my wall growing up going into the meaning of my name: "Life, or the Mother Of All Living". It made an impression on me from a very young age. It's influenced me in that I feel a deep personal call to be a better steward environmentally (Eve and the garden) and to be a positive force to protect others and help people/things grow. Not perfectly, obviously, but sometimes I ask myself if I'm living up to my name. (Also, if you saw the frivolous thread, you may understand why I chose the tree of life ring). 

There is a lot of teasing that has come with it, but it was nice growing up not to meet very many others. Now it seems there are a bunch of celebrities using it as a stage name since it "stands out." And, it's cute meeting little Avas and Evas.

I love meeting Adams and commiserating with them. I always start the conversation with, "Do you get a lot of Adam and Eve jokes?" and they always are guarded in their response until I tell them my own name, and it's always been instant connection, lol.

I did take my husbands name socially for about 2 years after marriage. But I filled out the marriage paperwork wrong so it wasn't legal, lol, and it sounds *really* bad actually with my first name (it sounds like a donkey bray, honestly), so I switched back to my maiden name socially and only really respond/intro myself with it at child activities just to avoid confusion about mismatched last names.

(Ok guys I'm coming off completely egocentric here but I swear I'm just procrastinating and no one has ever asked me this question, not even DH. I only get asked "Where's Adam?" LOL)

no, not egocentric. I've been thinking a lot lately and there are so many things about myself that nobody in my family knows about. I just don't talk much about myself. My mother and grandmother were the same and they're in heaven now so it's too late to ask them questions about themselves.

[Beth S]

You know my first name, but my parents chose my middle name b/c both grandmothers had the same first name = Helen!
I disliked it growing up, and even complained about it to a father/daughter while we were on a car trip.
They let the topic drop.

After we got home, I learned that the daughter's middle name was also Helen! 

Now that vintage names are in vogue, and I've gained a bit of perspective when naming our 5 kids . . . I'm more reconciled to it.  😉

Edited September 2, 2020 by Beth S

[fairfarmhand]

54 minutes ago, Beth S said:

You know my first name, but my parents chose my middle name b/c both grandmothers had the same first name = Helen!
I disliked it growing up, and even complained about it to a father/daughter while we were on a car trip.
They let the topic drop.

After we got home, I learned that the daughter's middle name was also Helen! 

Now that vintage names are in vogue, and I've gained a bit of perspective when naming our 5 kids . . . I'm more reconciled to it.  😉

Uh-oh. How embarrassing!

 

I love that vintage names are back in style. 

[historically accurate]

1. Write about your name. Where did it come from? What does it mean?

Feel free to keep your actual name private, but share the story of how you were named. You can also include things like whether or not you like your name, do you like the way it's pronounced and spelled? Was there a name you wished that you had in childhood? Did you take your dh's name when you married (if you're married)? How did you feel about that? What influenced your decision about that? 

 

Well, from my user name, you know my first name. I grew up as a Becky, but I've moved toward Rebecca as an adult (I am thankful for that now that Becky is used as a derogatory term for a stereotype of a woman). My father really wanted Rhonda or Charlotte as my name; my mom vetoed both of those, and they agreed on Rebecca. My middle name is my aunt's middle name because she died shortly before I was born. I was always ok with my name, although I really wanted a more whimsical name growing up, probably because I had a very common surname growing up (think Smith). I took care of that desire by giving my children fairly uncommon names although they have become more common recently.

My dh wanted me to take his name, so I did. I don't have any great feelings on name changing either way. I would've been fine keeping my name, hyphenating our names, or taking his name.  

[Slache]

My name is Rachel and I don't like it for me. I went by Slache for years but my husband insists I go my Rachel. I grew up around a lot of Mexican immigrants who pronounced it Racial. I like that better.

I took my husband's last name. When I was young everyone spelled my name wrong, now they pronounce it wrong.

[Ottakee]

My mom wanted to name me Ursula Paige but my father won out and I got a name that was used back when I was born but I have never met anyone younger than me with the name.

Interestingly (or not) my name sounds very close to that of my older half sister (that my mother didn't know existed when I was born)🤔

My mom loved the named Amy from Little Women and when my sister was born that was her name.  Alas, it was just about the most popular name for people her age.  When I came along my parents weren’t going to let that happen so they dug through the family tree and named me after my great-grandmother’s middle name, Dorinda.  I almost never hear my name.  I remember my niece coming for a visit all excited that she found my name in a book...I was the mean girl at camp in the American Girl Molly series...boo.  I have seen my name a Dorothy Sayers book and in a movie from the late 80s called Always, but only ever met one other person with my name.  She worked at our Costco and we always spoke.  I actually went to the Costco for the first time because my SIL told me she met another Dorinda.  It was cool.  I did find it amazing how many people could slaughter the pronunciation and spelling of Dorinda as it is completely phonetic.  Maybe they missed phonics in school 😉
 

I did take my husband’s last name without much thought, but I have known people over the years that I probably would have kept my maiden name if I were them.  I did have a supervisor when I was engaged who admitted he liked my now husband, but he did joke that he thought I should marry someone whose last name was pie or cobbler so that I could hyphenate my last name and be 🍑 - Cobbler.  (There was a reason my manager joked that my group was Snow White and the seven Dorks). 

Edited September 4, 2020 by Mom2mthj
Forgot a verb