Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Credit Is Due

I would love to have taken Latin at some point in my schooling, to learn more about how our language has evolved. From where I sit, seven years of German was a semi-huge waste of time since you don't hear much of it in Texas. Seems like a dead language would have been a more productive undertaking.

I guess it's not too late if I want to be a life-long learner some-such, but I don't know if my abundant spare time would permit me the opportunity.

Who am I kidding? I don't make time to do things like that. File it away under Wisful Thinking behind learning to play the piano and chess. Someone please sit down and teach me to do those things one day- ball is in your court.

Anyway, I like knowing where people's names came from*, and why they were named that name in particular...

Two of my childhood friends, MK and MD, have the same first and middle name, both spelled the same way, because their mothers (who did not know each other at the time) read the same novel while they were pregnant.

An old coworker in New York was named after a legendary Dallas Cowboys football coach.

One of my childhood neighbors got her middle name because her dad loves the Rolling Stones and named his daughter after one of the band members' daughters. He even went to one of their concerts the night she was born.

FR's parents heard her first name used in an elevator in Las Vegas.

My own middle name is four generations deep with women on my mother's side of the family, which I love since boys are typically the ones named after family.

Since no one has ever asked, I'll tell you that the name of this blog actually came from a book. Manhattan Transfer, by John Dos Passos, was a book I read for the 20th Century American Novel class taken the fall of my senior year of college, before I had seriously considered the idea of moving to New York. I unearthed it a few weeks ago, in preparation for my move, among several other novels from that year, while going through boxes that have been in storage for almost two years.

I remember it popping off the page of my syllabus when I glanced over the lengthy list of novels we would eventually cover. It's not the greatest book I've ever read (Pride and Prejudice holds that distinction), and it wasn't my favorite of that semester (Fitzgerald and Hemingway are tough competition).

If nothing else, the title made an impression.

*(Of course I would love to know how you were named and/or how you named your blog...)

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing, he knew nobody had said it before.
-Mark Twain

7 comments:

Bluebelle said...

My names are biblical which is how my parents knew them but they chose them because they could both agree on them! And it happens that both my grandmothers also have my middle name as part of their name which I love.
My blog name - Leaves in the Spring was partly chosen because they are beautiful and full of new life and hope and gorgeous colour. And also because that's kind of how I feel - at the start of my life, young, just coming out into the sunshine of the real world and growing into it.

Anonymous said...

my name is family as well. it has grown on me through out the years, and i starting to appreciate the uniqueness.

my blog name came from gilmore girls. sukie's magic risotto episode. you know the one where the food critique did not like her 'magic risotto' and she flipped. yeah, kind of lame, but i like it.

Amy said...

Bluebelle: Sometimes I forget that someone else will have to like the names I like too! I really love your picture, by the way.

P.D.O.: Okay I had seriously wondered where your blog name came from! I wish I would have picked up on the GG reference on my own- I binge watch my DVDs of that show.

jlc said...

i love unearthing good things like that --- glad to know the background of your bloggie title now!


:)

erin - heart in ireland said...

That is pretty awesome :) My mom just liked my name, no real significance. My blog though comes from the garth brooks song - ireland. my favorite lyric is - and her heart it is in ireland, deep within the emerald isle.

And when I created this blog for going back to ireland, it just seemed perfect!

Amy said...

Erin: I heart Garth Brooks- his was the music of my childhood.

My name is Cait said...

my name is because my parents liked it... not an exciting story.

my blog name because i grew up in the desert so why not go completely crazy with the ocean instead. it refers to the quote i have on the side of my blog.