a rose by any other name

So anyway...

We don't all get to choose our own names. Most of us live with the ones that our parents selected for us before we were born. Most of the time that seems to work, although I have known plenty of teenagers who wish they had been named something other than what the attendance lists call them.

My oldest child's name has been an ever-evolving phenomenon, it seems just about forever. At birth, we had chosen the name Caitlin Patricia. Caitlin, in fact, had been such a solid selection that there had been no second choice at all, and no male name had ever even been decided upon. In middle school, Caitlin dubbed herself Angel, and the name stuck enough that the administration even (to my chagrin) called it out at graduation. But that was far from the end of things.

Some time in high school Angel/Caitlin realized that she was transgender, that he was actually male. And that was when all of the fun began. Because not only was he male, but he also was multiple, meaning he had several different personalities within him--of both genders. Super. At first, my new son christened himself Nick. He also created a name for the collective group of personalities: Moss Alexander. Over time, Nick became John. Then it became Rory, which it is today. Moss Alexander morphed into North Homeward. I don't know why. It doesn't even sound like a name to me. It sounds like a street name. Still, if it's what he wants...

Most of the time, people around here just call him Bob.

As to me, well, I have been Karen all of my life, at least to myself. I do not know why. I have a cousin Karen, and we used to play together when we were young, but I don't think that is it. Who can really say? As to the middle name: I never had one until I needed one, so I gave it a lot of thought before settling on Renée because it means rebirth, it's Frenth (which I love), and I happen to like it. Full disclosure: I also happen to have a cousin named Renée. Make of that what you will.)

Here are my thoughts on my name:

There’s something solid, I think, about my first name: Karen, a simple, direct-sounding name, only five letters, grounded on both ends by firm consonants, the clipped K and the melodic N at odds with each other but working in harmony to compete the sound.  I like its simplicity, the ease with which is slides off the tongue, as I like its traditional spelling despite childhood flirtations with more cutesy versions with C’s and Y’s and a brief but passionate affair with Corinne.

My middle name, which flows directly from the ending of my first, is Renee.  Karen Renee.  Karenee.  It’s as if my middle name’s sole purpose is to remove the weight of the first, to change its innate structure, to transubstantiate it from a grounded name to something of air, a whimsical name that is only five letters long, three of which are E, a name that begins with the quietest of consonants and floats off into the nothingness of the French ée at its ending, lighter even than air, slipping into dreams.

These names are me.  I am my name.  So much of me is grounded in the firmness of normalcy, from my occupation to my children to my home.  But there remains at my center the whimsy of Renee, freely drifting wherever my life’s movements take me.

So I drift on, floating with the current, borne on whimsically into the future.