#6: What Is In A Name?

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

What Is In A Name?

My first name is definitely ME.  When graduating from high school, I changed from the more common version of my given name to the formal.  I simply could not picture a name ending with “ie” on a business card.

Since 1984, I have been a formalized me:  Deborah, rather than Debbie.

And then I got married and took, without hesitation or second thought, my husband’s surname.

Now, following a separation I feel as if I do not deserve to continue to carry my husband’s name (even though it is a surname that I really like:  distinguished-sounding, one syllable, and easy to pronounce).

Yet I do not feel that my maiden name holds any reflection at all of who I am and who I have become since, well, since moving out of the house when I was 18 years old to go to University.

I have to laugh out loud when one of my longest-standing friends admittedly can only call me “Debbie”.  Not even “Deb”; she says she never knew me as a “Deb”.  I have laughed so hard saying that she and other school girlfriends are the ONLY people on the planet that I will ALLOW to call me Debbie.  Not even my parents are cut any slack when they call me anything other than Deborah or Deb.

And heaven help anyone else who attempts to call me something other than Deborah.  They risk a scathing look and a quick correction to set them straight.  “It is Deborah.”  It’s a sensitive issue, can’t you tell?

That’s just me.