What's in a Name?

Then the man—Adam—named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all who live.  (Genesis 3:20 NLT)

I thought about it on the mower last night and it dawned on me that I told you how Lane got his name, but not Madolyn.  If you know me real well, her first name is a no-brainer.  Madolyn is after my Grandma Madolyn.  I never had much doubt about what my daughter's first name would be, but we had to get a little creative with the second one.  It doesn't sound creative, but it is to me...(because I'm so stinkin' creative.)  The middle name is LeAnn.  That is Le for Lela, which is Jay's mom's first name (although she doesn't go by it) and it was also his grandma's name.  Ann is my mom's middle name.  I love names that have meaning and significance, even if it's only to me.  I love the name Madolyn because it is just a beautiful looking name, but I also love it because it is a tribute to someone that means so much to me.  (I'll have to write about that some other time.)

I find it a bummer that the females always have to give up their names, you know.  So I thought I should include our mother's names in her name somehow, and since I'm not too fond of children having four names, we smushed them together for the end result.  When I got married, I did what my mom did...I immediately dropped my middle name, although I don't mind it, and now use my maiden name as my middle name.  I don't hyphenate it or write it out, I just use the initial in my signature.  It makes me feel good...even if know one else knows what it stands for!

I was named after someone, thankfully.  I was supposed to be Nancy or Eric (if a boy obviously).  I like my name.  I like that it's from the Bible and that it does have significance to the family.  Funny thing, my parents named me Sarah six months after my dad's first cousin and her husband named their daughter Sara.  Now, this wouldn't seem funny, except that we lived six miles apart in the same school district and area.  What were they thinking?!  And of course, for the first 11 years of my life, Sara and I were inseparable.  Back and forth at one another's house every single weekend.  This became a problem and after awhile of yelling "Sarah...no, I mean the other Sarah," everyone started referring to me as Sarah Beth, and to this day that family and others still call me Sarah Beth.

That takes me to another friend, Susan.  Susan was just a year older than I was.  We attended the same church, our families were close...so again, we were always together.  I kid you not, to this day people call Susan Sarah and Sarah Susan.  It's funny because even now when someone (who has no idea of the connection) simply misspeaks and calls us by the other name, we answer.  A few weeks ago we were at a meeting and someone did that and we both just laughed.  The person had no idea what was so funny about it, but we didn't care.  We are 36 and 37 years old and our names are still interchangeable.

Even in the Bible, there is significance in names.  It is obvious that the names given to people were chosen for a very specific purpose.  I love that.  Do you notice how in scripture there are lots of references made to the name and its meaning?  Names were very important.  And they were proud of their names.  Seems like a lot of times they worked hard to remain true to the name they were given at birth.  Their name almost was like a foretelling of their future too.  It is so interesting if you think about it. 

So that's the story of my daughter's name, my name and even my cousin and friend's names.  Aren't you glad I shared that with you?  And isn't it funny how sometimes you name a child something, find out the meaning later, and realize how right-on it is...I mean Sarah means a Hebrew Princess.  So I'm not Hebrew, but, hey, I'm a princess (at least in my own mind).  Ha!