What’s in a Name?

I’ve always been pretty happy with my name, though I have to confess that I’ve never used my full given name in a day-to-day way. Elizabeth. It always felt so formal, kind of like a Victorian dining room in a large house with wainscoting and lots of crystal and starched lace curtains and the side board loaded down with a full china tea service.

I’ve pretty much always been a Liz. I did try on Beth for a brief period around the age of 9, but that didn’t stick, I just so wasn’t a Beth, and it never felt right.

I find it fascinating how we live inside our names with ease or with discomfort. I’m comfortable in my name, but then, Elizabeth has something like 27 diminutives, so I had a lot of nick names to try on before feeling like there was a good fit. I know quite a few people that don’t like the name they were given by their parents, they had a name that didn’t feel like who they were, it never fit right, kind of like uncomfortable shoes. So they changed their name to something that felt totally right, a name that had meaning for them, a name that they could answer to.

We are all (in our own ways) looking for who we are, where our place is in this world, who our people are and having the name that you feel is just right, just you, can go a long way to making the journey more manageable, more agreeable, more “right”. Because when you’re stepping forward to say: “Hi, my name is . . .”  it wants to feel true, it wants to feel like you’re already telling a part of your story, in a name.

How do you feel about your name?