A Name Game – Fri 10th July 2015

Yay! It’s been a positive end to the week, with both T and D relieved that it’s the weekend and T counting down with a week to go until the end of term.

So, I’m going a bit off track with something that’s been buzzing around in my mind, on and off this week.

The only soaps I regularly watch are Doctors (apart from when it’s taken off schedule at any opportunity) and Coronation Street (or Corrie).

In Monday’s episode, two characters (David and Kylie) were discussing what first names they’d give themselves if they could choose.  David’s preference was for “Brad” and I think Kylie’s was for “Heidi”.  It got me thinking about my name and whether I would change it if I could.

I know why I was called Jeannette.  I was named after my grandfather, John.  The male version being Jean and then that was made into the more female Jeannette.  

Most versions of the name have just the one “n” (Jeanette) but mine has two and that caused no end of problems growing up.

No one spelt it correctly.  It was Jeanette, Janet (coincidentally my sister-in-law’s name), Janete and – probably the most extreme version – Ginete.

I was in my teens when I wanted to change it, I thought Jay was okay, sometimes I still do, it’s a heck of a lot easier to spell and sometimes I’m just “J” anyway.  At the time, that didn’t go down too well.

Back to Corrie and it got me wondering, if I could choose my name, what would it be?

I’ve toyed with floral names, with place names that mean something to us, with gemstone names and with names that I just like the sound of.

My favourite word ever is “Serendipity” but that would be a bit extreme as a first name, wouldn’t it?  I wouldn’t want it shortened to Dippy either!

Eventually I decided if that Corrie storyline had applied to me, I’d say “Millie”, not Milly or Emily or Millicent (definite no to the latter).  But Millie, with an “ie”.  

Which then made me remember that for a short while, I decided I wanted to be called “Nettie”, which is a shortened (sort of) version of my name and I remember being called that as a child.

Nothing will come of all these ramblings, but I might try out “Nettie” again and leave any names for future pets.  Any dog has, just has, to be called Godfrey!

When Hubbie and I were picking prospective names for T and D, we wanted names that couldn’t be shortened and we choose short names – only to find that as they’ve grown up, they’ve both obtained nicknames which are a longer variation of their first names.   Neither of them mind, in fact they like them (which is a relief), I wonder if T will still be “Mr Pick” when he’s a dad visiting his parents (us) and D hers.

Having just asked Hubbie what he’d be in the “name game”, he had three immediate suggestions and then whittled it down to one (Steven, with Mark and Graham being the other two).

Maybe in a parallel universe we’re there, Millie and Steve.  Not that anything will change but it has been a welcome distraction in a really quite eventful week.

Have a lovely weekend, Jeannette aka J aka Nettie!! 

  
(Millie the Minion has a ring to it, doesn’t it? Nicely purple too.  Any resemblance to me first thing in the morning (or before a Costa Mocha) is purely accidental!!)

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