What's in a Name?

Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds
Singin' in the Rain, 1952

I'm taking a writing class. Our first assignment was a short essay about our name. Which is interesting, because it's a subject of great discontent for me... mine is wrong. It simply doesn't suit me, I've never identified with it.

It's always felt frivolous and immature to me. As an adult I shortened it to one syllable. No longer annoyingly perky, but now it feels brusque and truncated and that's not right either.

Sigh...

How did this happen? My mother wanted her children to have Biblical names. OK fine, using those parameters she had a lot of nice Biblical names to choose from. How about Abigail, Julia, Leah, Lydia,  or Rachel? But nooo..... she picked the ponderous Deborah. In all fairness, there was no Google then. But that might have worked to my advantage, at least I'm not Dorcas from the book of Acts, which I'm pretty sure she's never read.

I seriously considered changing it in high school. But some investigation revealed that would be very difficult. Again... no Google to pave the way. It was a resource-less time, I gave up.

Biblical inspiration was the official reason – the party line my parents held in response to each of my bitter adolescent inquisitions.

The real reason – which my mother eventually blurted out?

That stinking Debbie Reynolds – America's sweetheart. Yep, the one with the abysmal taste in men. A huge segment of 1950s mothers wanted Debbie's beauty and talent to rub off on their daughters. What higher hope could you have for your little girl than that she would sing and tap dance through life with someone like Gene Kelly?

However, I think the Debbie trend might have taken a hit after the infamous Eddie Fisher husband wash-out. Nobody wants their daughter's husband to run off with Elizabeth Taylor now do they?