What's In A Name

"What's in a name. A rose by any other would still smell as sweet." Didn't Shakespeare say something like that. Well, Ryan would tend to take issue with ol' William on that point. Ryan is one of those unfortunate children that has been saddled with a family nickname from birth. It started off cute enough. Sam couldn't say brother, he said bubba, which turned into Bub, blah, blah, blah. So here we are seven years later, and Ryan is still Bub, and would prefer that he never be called that again. I tried to explain to him that he comes from a family in which that is easier said than done. The neighborhood kids overhear Sam say it so much that we pass kids we don't even really know and they are like "Hi BOB." Ryan just sighs and shakes his head. I recently received a friend request on Facebook from a name I didn't recognize. Curiosity got the best of me, and when I accepted and went to her page it explained that she went by Missy in high school, but has since started using her middle name of Tamera. I was really amazed that someone was able to just decide to go by another name and that can actually work. Don't know what her family calls her, though. I once worked with these two lawyers that were brothers, and one was named William, never Will or Bill, always William. His brother told me that he was called Bill up until college, when he announced that he was now going to go by William, and he refused to acknowledge you if you referred to him as anything else. I thought to myself that they must come from very civilized and polite families, because that kind of stuff would never fly with my family. If I ever announced "I would now like to be known as Jacqueline" my family would be like "Get over yourself, JACK." I have male cousins that are now grown men in their 40's and because they have the same name as their father, they will forever be "Big (insert name) and Little (insert name), for example, we have a Big Lenny and Little Lenny, and a Big Gene and Little Gene. Doesn't matter how old you are, you are either the Big or the Little. In Jersey, we must not be quite as original as they are down here in the South, where there are plenty of Jrs., Trips and Treys. Just Big and Little. In my own family, my father is Mike (unless you go really old school on him and he's Mick or Mickey) but mostly Mike. That leaves my brother as Mikey (when he's not being called Dumb Ass, that is). Anyway, Mikey would prefer to be Mike, but oh no, not an option. This has led to Staci calling him Mikey Mike. See what I mean. This is what happens when you try to mess with the name thing around here. I have pointed all this out to Ryan, and told him that even though Sam is just Sam, Lilly is "the Lil" and Trace is, well, a good ol' Southern boy (see Trip and Trey explanation above) who will forever have to explain to teachers what his name is, but Ryan still wanted to whine about it, so then I told him as any good Separ would...Get Over It!!!!