What’s In A Name…

This is twice now.  I’m writing a post, prompted by Mama Kat’s weekly writer’s workshop, and I’m also watching a really weird horror movie.  This week it  is “Ginger Snaps”.  I like horror movies, but I’m not a fan of werewolves, these movies usually stink.  But the main characters are not the insipid, overly sexy, teenage girls typically depicted in horror movies these days, and I can’t stop watching.   The special effects are aweful….wait, darn you IFC, I’m off topic! 

The prompt- 3.) What’s in YOUR name? What does it mean? Why was it given to you? etc..

Elizabeth:   mother of John the Baptist and kinswoman of Mary, Queen of Romania (1881-191) and poet, Queen of England (1558 – 1603), daughter of Henry VIII,  a city in New Jersey, south of Newark, population 126,000. Elizabeth (-lz-bth)  devout or reverent…yeah…not so much.     

I’ve been Elizabeth Davis for so long, that it seems really odd to write that I was born Elizabeth Hart.  Notice something missing?  Maybe a middle initial perhaps?  All the other kids had middle initials and pestered me about why I didn’t have one.  When I asked why Dad, he told me that when I was born I was too small for a long name, with lots of letters, Elizabeth was long enough without the last name tacked on.  I didn’t buy it.   

I didn’t like my name for a long time.  It can be shortened in to a lot of nicknames, which I generally didn’t find amusing.  My parents called me Liz, Lizgiz, Lizbizz, Lizzy, and  Lizgizzy, in front of PEOPLE…embarrassing.    In elementary school, the boys called me Lizard…ugh.  I was tauned with the Lizzy Borden Had and Ax chant which is kind of ok, once or twice but over, and over showed a lack of imagination…please.  In high-school, things were even less imaginative, and whole lot meaner.   Liz turned in to Lezzy, then evolved in to Lezzybitch.  Kids mistook shyness for  bitchiness.   College was a fresh start, I avoided names starting with L, and insisted on being called Beth.  But I’m just not a Beth, so it didn’t stick. 

If you ask my Dad, he would say that I’m named after my grandmother on his side.  Mom would have towed the party line and said the same.  But I also know that Mom was a huge Jane Austen fan.  Her favorite story was “Pride and Prejudice”.   She loved the Marlon Brando film adaptation and we spent many Summer vacation afternoons watching the Masterpiece Theater version on PBS.  For 10 points, guess who her favorite character was, and for a bonus 50, list that character’s nickname.  Thank’s to Mom, I love the story, but I’m still not a fan of the nickname.  Hint, hint.

Here’s a name I do love,  and it has multiple variations depending the context including: Mom (for casual conversation), Mommy (for bumps, scrapes, and the dark), Mama (feeling goofy or sad), Moooommmmmy (come here ), and  MomMomMomMomMomMOM (pay attention).

Here’s another version that I love- Mrs. Elizabeth H. Davis.  I got that middle initial after all, and I learned to love Lizgizzy.