the holly and the oy vey*
My great-grandfather Harry was a shrewd and ruthless businessman who gleefully drove his own brother into bankruptcy, made a small fortune through war profiteering, a larger one through serpentine tax avoidance schemes, and died under suspicious circumstances and a 500-pound bale of cotton.
But, for purposes of this post, the most important fact about Harry is that his name began with an "H," which, under the Ashkenazi Jewish custom of that time and place, meant that one of my names had to start with the same letter.
My parents decided that it would be my middle name, mostly because the choices were rather limited. Hannah had already been used by a cousin and, though I would have been happy with any of them, my parents didn't care for Harriet or Hortensia or Hepzibah or Hulda. Ultimately, my mother, who every year hung beautifully decorated Easter eggs on her 8-foot tall Christmas tree, chose the middle name calculated to most offend her own mother -- Holly.
It worked. My grandmother was duly horrified that her first granddaughter had been given such a Christian-sounding middle name and refused to visit for weeks, instead sending a check enclosed in a card signed "a heartbroken mother." But, in the end, as she usually did, my grandmother found a way to retaliate and endlessly needle my mother. To my grandmother, I was always Niobe Challah,** after the braided bread that Jews traditionally serve on Friday nights
What's your middle name? Or, if you don't have one or telling us would forfeit too much of your anonymity, what's the middle name of your parent or sibling or spouse or partner or child? And what's the story behind it?
*Law Mommy should feel free to ignore this post, since I recently told her this very story.
**Pronounced, approximately, Hollah.
55 comments:
My middle name is Solveig. It's Norwegian... we aren't.
My older sister and younger brother got the very ordinary Louise and Christopher as middle names, and I have no explanation for why or how my mother chose such a whack job name.
It means Sunshine, which amused my father no end during my teenage goth phase, and 'Sunny' (followed by a wicked chuckle) became his nickname for me.
Ha! That's a great story! "Niobe Challah" instead of Holly! Hee, hee! (Maybe I'm starved for humor, but darned if that didn't hit me right in my funny bone!)
No exciting middle name. It was Susan & I dropped it to legally make my maiden name my middle name...
my middle name is virginia. a family name. i used to get report cards from college that were addressed to:
christ virgin.
sort of like the holy trinity. but not.
My middle name is my mother's first name, and my brothers is my father's first name. My parents weren't so creative.
The best part of this entire post it the title. I love it!
Challah! Pronounced with that kind of guttural H sound at the start?
My middle name is Catherine. As is my mother's, her mother's, and hers before that. And it's my daughter's middle name. It also crops up as a first name on my mother's father's side, and it's my husband's sister's name.
Harry sounds like he was an interesting character.
Mine is Anne, which was, at the time I was born, my mother's name. Since I was named, my parents divorced and my mother decided to go back to her maiden name. When she did so, she decided to go all-in, also changing her first name to the name she had always gone by, so now my middle name is unconnected to anyone else in the family.
My brother is a third and hopes to make his first son a fourth. My grandfather took their shared middle name as an adult to honor the family who took him in during summers in the early 1920s as part of the Fresh Air Program.
Awesome story. I told this to Julia recently, but I was born into a very (1950s) Americana family of . . well, Leave-it-to-Beaver's mom's name is my grandmothers, and so on. Mom read war and peace and decided to name me __tash_. So when my dad called my maternal grandmother to tell her I was born, and my name, the first thing that flew out of her mouth was not "how are they?" but "WHY?" Many people in that family still butcher my name, I think on purpose as a sleight to my mom. Little do they know that I only accumulate funny nicknames that way.
My middle name (which would be giving far too much away at this point) is French; hence, should be unadorned for the male version, and should have an -e on the end for the feminine. And the state left off the -e on my birth certificate, so my middle name is a male French one. Which I've always found appropriate, and thankful that it was at least now phonetic.
I was named after my grandmothers, paternal then maternal. So my middle name is Esther (good Jewish name for an evangelical Christian kid), which I didn't totally love, although I thought her story was really cool.
I don't have a great name story, except all my older siblings have traditional Catholic saint's names and mine as Amy is not.
My husband however is a bit more interesting with his first name. It is the hebrew word for bear. He goes by the diminutive (you hebs will know it). Unfortunately, the diminutive is very similar to a slang word for marijuana. That makes it tough to take your boyfriend home to parents who raised boys in the 70s. But they now love him anyway.
Fantastic title!
Have I got a story for YOU. When my mother went into labor, ten weeks early, with me, my father was out of the country. So she called on a woman who worked with my dad to help her get to the hospital. Grateful, my mother gave me her name as my middle name.
A few years later my father married this woman.
Suffice it to say that when I got married, I ditched my middle name.
My middle name is Audrey - it's my mother's first name. My father wanted me to have my mother's full name because my brother has my father's name (my brother is a III). My mother said no way, absolutely not and said it was because she always hated her name. My dad thought I would be upset one day because my brother has his name and I wouldn't have hers, so she gave in and let it be my middle name, even though she really wanted it to be Irene after the neighbor. To this day she talks about how she wishes she had named me after the neighbor. Anyway, I wouldn't have minded having my mother's full name (well, at various points in life, I might have minded actually, given our relationship) - her name is Audrey Evelynn, I always thought she had a pretty name. It's certainly prettier than my name. I think how people get named is fascinating!
My parents were told that they were having twin boys so I was scheduled to have the middle name of either Zacharia or Hezekiah. Luckily I threw them for a loop after my twin brother was born. Lucky for him, too. He got out of having either one of those middle names.
I then ended up with the middle name of Faith. My sister has the middle name of Grace. This is quite ironic to me because until I was 9 or so my parents only went to church on holidays. Ha!
My middle name story is the same as Magpie's, except it's a different name. But it goes back four generations as a middle name in my family. I didn't give it to Z., but I might give it to another child if we manage to have one.
Since my middle name is dull, dull, dull, I'll mention my father's middle name which is Ferd.
He was named after his father, whose name was Ferdinand.
I use to think it was so silly, but now I realize the rich cultural connection it has.
My brother then received my father's first name as his middle: Merle. Sadly, my brother has no children to pass on his name to, much less the family's surname as he was the only boy and he is the last tie to the name.
fabulous story...and title. you funny. and apparently your quirky streak runs in the family.
my mn is Elaine. glamourous, not. but it was also my dear grandmother's mn, and while she was alive it was a little point of pleasantry for us, especially whenever we met someone (say, a nursing home assistant) with the name. so i live with it.
i like Holly better. or Challah. either.
My mom is from the South and wanted my middle name to be "Jo". My dad (Joseph, called Joe) nixed that quite firmly. She came up with the closest thing she could and made it "Joan". I took the first opportunity and made my maiden name a middle when I got married!
i had two girls/one boy triplets and luckily have two sisters. the girls got my sister's first names, jamie and lisa, as their middle names. my boy, on the other hand, got husband's father's name, charles- which even at the time was a precarious choice, as husband and his father are always slipping and sloping.
husband and his father have not been speaking for the past year, and i doubt they ever will again. not too long ago, i was calling all the kids by first and middle names, and my boy, unhappy with his, said, "NO r. charles! r. uncle doug!" my brother-in-law was quite pleased.
my own first name is one of the most used xmas holiday words EVER, also meaning HAPPY (go figure). it's annoying...and wasn't even considered christian enough to baptize me with, without adding marie after it.
Wow, where to start? My middle name is simply my mother's maiden name, in keeping with a WASP tradition of the time. But then I got engaged and converted to Judaism, and I chose Shoshana as my Hebrew middle name because it's an approximation of "lily" and my maternal grandmother was Lillian. Then came the kids and we decided to saddle them with TWO middle names (actually four, two in English and two in Hebrew), with the second Hebrew MN representing a hybrid of names from me and my husband's sides of the family. Still with me? OK, my eldest daughter's MNs are Edith Ella. Edith was my paternal grandmother and Ella is a cousin of my mother's; in Hebrew the MNs are Idit Bella, Idit corresponding to Edith and Bella being my husband's grandmother. My younger daughter's MNs are Jessica Hazel; Hazel is another cousin on my mom's side and I honestly can't remember who the hell Jessica is after on my husband's side. Her Hebrew MNs are Yizkah Hinde, Yizkah supposedly being the feminine version of Yitzhak (my husband's grandfather's Hebrew name, Isaac in English) and Hinde was his other maternal grandmother's YIDDISH name (Hilda in English). Meanwhile, my husband's middle name in English and Hebrew is David, or so he thoguht until he found a copy of his bris certificate that said his Hebrew middle name is Yisrael. So now we're all thoroughly confused, as I'm sure you are too. :-)
My middle name is for my sister's babysitter!
But, Benjamin's middle name is for my mother, since we couldn't find a first name we liked with the right letter.
Emily R
My middle name, they chose for what I can only call 'no apparent reason.'
My spouse goes by his middle name- they wanted to name him after his grandfather, but MiddleName Grandpa'sName sounded really hillbilly. So he's Grandpa'sName MiddleName.
My middle name is Bess, after my mom's grandma who was reportedly psychic.
My son's middle name is Jack, after my Grandpa who was a fairly grumpy man but I've always liked the name Jack. Plus, my Grandma, his wife, died when I was six months pregnant. On our last visit I tried to get her interested in the coming baby so she would fight and I told her if it was a boy one of his name's would be Jack (he died the year before). It didn't work. She died a couple of days later, and keeping our word was a way of keeping her memory alive.
Of course, her middle name was Mae (on some documents, on others it is May), so if we'd had a girl, her middle name would have been Mae.
Elizabeth, after my paternal grandmother. It just happens to be my mum's name too.
I'd like to give a daughter Rebecca as a middle name, because I like my name.
I have another middle name which is a way old family name. It's Welsh. My mother uses it all over the internet. I would tell you it, but then I'd have to kill you.
My middle name (before I legally changed the whole thing a while back) was "Annette". I couldn't imagine a more chirpy, silly name. It's not connected to anyone in the family.
My first name was "Elizabeth" which I actually kind of like. So.. when I legally changed, I kept "Elizabeth" as a middle name.
My middle name is Petra. It wasn't supposed to be. My parents had wanted to name me after my Paternal Grandfather's Mother (Petrea). So, they asked my Dad's mom how to spell it. They didn't know that she had a serious grudge against the woman AND that her own marriage was more than rocky at the time (she and my grandfather were divorced less than 2 years later). So my grandmother gave them the spelling of her own mother's name. And convinced them that Petra (Paytra) was really supposed to be pronounced Patrea (Puhtrayah) and was thus the right name.
It wasn't until my grandfather saw the birth certificate and got upset that they'd told him that I was named after his mother and then really named me after his wife's mother that my parents realized they'd been played.
My middle name before I married was "Elizabeth" which was a family name.
When I got married, the social security office refused to allow me to add my madien name as my second middle name (this is what both of my children have as their second middle name), unless I hyphenated my last name. Because the last thing I needed was ANOTHER last name in my house, I opted to remove Elizabeth and replace it with my madien name.
Now I match my kids.
Just plain old Rachel, no idea why. It gives my name a nice rhythm though, 3 lots of 2 syllables.
Suzann. It's a strange spelling because my father was a terrible speller. So when I was born, my mother told him to spell it and she went with that spelling because she didn't want my father to misspell his own daughter's name.
My first and middle names were supposed to be my mom's first and middle names. However, when my grandma gave birth to my mom, she was so hopped up on the painkillers that she forgot the name she'd chosen for her daughter. My mom ended up being named for some random nurse and she hasn't forgiven my grandma for giving her such a plain name. I think she gave me her intended name out of spite, and you know what? I've never really cared for it.
Rose.
Actually, it's part of my first name, which is "[Zee] Rose." However, I've always used it as a middle name, and didn't even KNOW it was part of my first name until I saw my birth certificate as a teenager. (Why my mother never cleared this up, I haven't a clue.)
Ooh, ooh -- Zee! I have that too! My middle name is really part of my first name! Hee hee.
My middle name is Elizabeth, along with my mother's and her mothers, etc etc. Although in addition to the same middle name, we also all have the same first name. Not as confusing as it sounds though, as we all go by different nicknames (and my grandmother has been long dead, so she isn't around to add to the confusion).
There is actually jewelry that gets passed down to those with my name, so I sort of luck out. Of course I am also supposed to give a daughter the same name, so we'll see if it all works out...
I have two - Patricia Elizabeth. The first after my father and the second after my mother.
I like the two mn idea and will probably run with it when/if we have children. If we have a son, one of his middle names will be Armour - on my dad's side, every first born son has Armour as their middle name. I have no brothers though so perhaps we can give it new life.
My middle name is Barbara. I wasn't supposed to have a middle name, but my catholic grandmother insisted I be named after Saint Barbara who's day I was born on.
My middle name is Claire, which I am told by other Lisa's is very unusual. Apparently all other Lisa's on the planet are Lisa Marie or Lisa Anne.
My husband goes by his middle name because of some convoluted Chinese custom where all the children have the same first name.
What a great story. Holly is pretty darn Christian, for sure. But I love what your grandmother did with it!
My middle name is very boring and plain. I wasn't named after anyone. My birth name is a little more interesting, I got my grandmother's maiden name as my middle name. I have thought about legally changing my name, to add that and remove the meaningless middle I now have.
My middle name is Marie, the same as approximately 75% of girls my age. My great-grandmother's first name was Marie, and that is how my parents chose it.
My son's middle name is Jonah. We chose that name in honor of our good friend's son, Jonah, who was stillborn at 37 weeks last November.
My middle name, which I love, was the name my mom wanted to give to me. But my dad said, "no, our friends [x and y] just had a baby with that name."
They never saw those friends again.
*sigh*
I've always liked my middle name better than my first name, but oh well. Such is life. :)
I have no middle name. My mother thought middle names that were not one's mother's maiden name was too Anglo. So I wasn't given one. My mother's middle name is Ramos. My middle name would have been Perez if I continued the Hispanic tradition. But since my mother married, as she calls it, a "bolio", I was given no middle name. I just have to suffice with two names.
i am not named after anyone, but because of the origins of both my first and middle name, if I had married someone with the last name of Josephs of Josephson or some such name, i would have essentially been named after jesus, mary and joseph
by the way, i got a lovely card in the mail the other day, that made me grin. thank you.
My middle name is Margaret, which I am not an especially large fan of. In combination with Hannah, my first name, I think it makes me sound like a middle-aged librarian - or the stereotype thereof. The tradition behind them is nice though. I couldn't be Bridget (my nana's name) because one of my cousins got there first, so I got my first name off a great-aunt - one of the few who didn't get a traditional Irish name - who smoked a pipe and lived in a caravan in the wilds of Tipperary with three huge dogs. My middle name is that of several relatives, but my mother swears up and down that I wasn't named after her sister - who she doesn't get along with. My aunt, of course, prefers to pretend I was.
My entire family calls me Nancy though. The only reason I wasn't just named it is that it isn't in the Bible, and my family would never have gone for it. Every person in our family has at least one name from the Bible.
Surely I am not the only one of Niobe's devoted fans that does not have a middle name? My mother and her parents only had the one name while my dad had three and "those other names are just a bloody nuisance when you are filling in forms, no one ever calls you by all of them at the same time." Which is why we didn't get one.
He was a Scot and his names follow a complicated formula - his first name is after his maternal uncle and the MNs are the maiden surname of his mother and her mother. His older sister had the maternal granmother's first name, maiden name and maiden name of same grandmother's mother. So my dad and his sister had one of their middle names in common.
I'm sorry now I didn't follow the tradition. It's a nice way to honour the people you come from. And it makes it easier for future generations to track your family history.
Bean and Tangerine. Honest. Those are the middle names printed on my daughters' birth certificates.
THANK YOU so much for the Christmas Card!!!
My middle name is "Maria", and I was named so since my mother, who probably should have been a nun instead of a homeaker, chose to name me after the patron saint of virgins, most likely in the hope it would keep me pure until I was married. You can imagine the attempted guilt trips twenty seven years later when my husband and I named our daughter "Amethyst Mirrabella". Both those names were chosen because they were unusual, and, three years later, everyone who meets her says that no other name would fit her as well. The rough translation of my daughter's name is, "Beautiful Jewel", which she most definately is!
My middle name is Frededrian. It's pronounced Free-dee-dree-ann. My mother decided to be "creative" and make a middle name that had part of my dad's name Freddie combined with a girl's name. To come up with the name that no one has ever pronounced correctly in my entire life. I used to hate it, but as I got older it grew on me. It only took about 22 years for that happen.
Oh my! these are so terribly interesting!
My middle name is Rachelle...for no apparent reason. I have always really loved it, as I think Emily Rachelle is a nice pairing. But there is no connection with my name to anyone else.
My name means diligent, industrious, motherly. A rather unfortunate combo for my siblings as I diligently and ruthlessly parented them all of our growing up years!
What a story! I am fascinated with middle names. If I know someone's middle initial, I am always curious to know the middle name. I don't have one myself. When i was getting the US citizenship, I took middle name Alice, but I got rid of it when I got married and changed my last name. A good while after I took a middle name, I found that my good friend and maid of honor also took a middle name when getting her citizenship, and it was also Alice. I think she kept it in marriage, too.
My middle name is Rosalind..I use it as my first. It was my mothers choice. There isn't any story behind it other then she loved the name...How boring!!
Like Magpie, my middle name is Catherine, as is my daughter's. My paternal grandmother's middle name is Kathern (spelled the way my very rural, elementary school-educated ancestors pronounced it). I think her mother had the same middle name, but I don't know how it was spelled. Probably the same way. My mother wanted to honor family tradition, but she felt the need to class it up. So in a way, I suppose Catherine is to Kathern what Challah is to Holly.
That is a fantastic story! You really should write a novel. That would be the perfect little detail to give some storyline the perfect amount of uniqueness and flair.
My middle name is Karen- after my aunt. There is nothing more significant about it than that. The only part that I find funny about it is that, to me, Karen doesn't fit very well as a middle name. It doesn't have the flow of the usual Ann, Marie, Catherine, or Elizabeth.
I love this story! I have a Jewish friend who had a son on Dec. 24 and named him Nicholas, much to the chagrin of her parents. Eh, what can you do. My middle name is Marian, after a great-aunt of my mother's. My mother is one of three sisters, their middle names are Hope, Faith, and Grace. I've always really liked that.
Alzbeta - means elizabeth in czech.
What a story and Challah...gotta love family.
Without spilling all my beans, suffice it to say my middle name does nothing to differentiate me from every other girl born at the same time period I was...it's only slightly less used than my first name.
UGH
Creative and original my parents are not.
Julie
Using My Words
my middle name is my mother's maiden name. my girls have my maiden name as their middle name. my husband's last name is hyphenated (some story about two long ago uncles who wanted to preserve their maternal and paternal names), so there's a whole lotta alphabet going on.
thank you so much for the beautiful card!!! a masterpiece for sure.
Late to the party, and the world's most boring comment to boot. No middle name.
A friend of mine took his father's name as his middle name when he moved to the US. Which came in handy, because his mother's name starts with the same letter, and he used to show up to various bureaucracies for both of his parents (whose English wasn't so good) and say that he was them, based on his middle name/initial.
Sales Sib and spouse, a heterosexual couple, share Lynn as their middle name. When they married, the judge's clerk didn't believe there wasn't some mistake, and insisted on talking to both the mothers (who were present) to check.
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