I generally sign e-mails. I know not everyone does ~ there is a return address, after all.
I probably send an equal number of e-mails from my male account as from a Meg account.
I noticed recently I stop Every Time and think about how I'm supposed to sign. Most people I write to as Meg know I'm trans and would understand "oops. That's my male name" as a response to the obvious question. The other way... it would take more than an "oops. That's my girl name."
By the way, I'm heading back to VA this afternoon. It's been a no girl stuff, except for passable stuff and even that is scarce. White cotton panties, plain girl socks, unexceptional girl pjs. I'm wearing boy jeans because I have more pocket space, in lieu of carrying my small bag.
Showing posts with label names. Show all posts
Showing posts with label names. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Who could hang a name on you?
Does anyone know who Pirouette is? I was going to use "She was dressed as Pirouette in red and her hair hung gently down" but I think the lyrics to the selected song are much better.
I've been hanging around a bit on Facebook. Mostly I ignore game invites and such but I have done a few "what is your _____" quizzes. One was something like "what gemstone are you?"
Mine was ruby.
A good fb friend suggested that that would make a good name for me.
I've thought about other names over the years, and played with a few for short periods of time: Marcia and Jill come to mind, but I've been Meg for a number of years now and the name is kind of intertwined with my persona. So I think that's me.
But I like Ruby.
When I was born, I was given my mother's middle name*. Meg doesn't have one, and I thought about Ruby. I love the sound, I love the gem connection.
But Meg Ruby just doesn't sound right. No matter what variation I use on Meg (and there are a lot), it just doesn't sound right. Even if I switched names, it doesn't parse.
Ah well. I'll stay with just being Meg.
*my mother didn't have a middle name either
I've been hanging around a bit on Facebook. Mostly I ignore game invites and such but I have done a few "what is your _____" quizzes. One was something like "what gemstone are you?"
Mine was ruby.
A good fb friend suggested that that would make a good name for me.
I've thought about other names over the years, and played with a few for short periods of time: Marcia and Jill come to mind, but I've been Meg for a number of years now and the name is kind of intertwined with my persona. So I think that's me.
But I like Ruby.
When I was born, I was given my mother's middle name*. Meg doesn't have one, and I thought about Ruby. I love the sound, I love the gem connection.
But Meg Ruby just doesn't sound right. No matter what variation I use on Meg (and there are a lot), it just doesn't sound right. Even if I switched names, it doesn't parse.
Ah well. I'll stay with just being Meg.
*my mother didn't have a middle name either
Monday, March 31, 2014
What's in YOUR Name
(Marci drop me a note ~ I want to talk about your comment from a couple of week's ago!)
Most of us were given boy's names at birth. Most of us have taken on a girl's name at some point. I don't have hard numbers, but I think those statements are factual.
There are, as I said last week, three kinds of girl's names.
So there are three categories we can choose from.
And because nothing we do is ever simple, my readers reminded me there's another way to look at names. You might choose a name of someone you admire, friend or celebrity, totally outside the "what kind of name do I want?" category.
For a derivative name, Michael might turn into Michelle, Robert into Roberta, Martin into Martina.
If your name is sufficiently ambiguous you might keep it as-is. Remember "Pat" from Saturday Night Live? I don't think we ever did find out what sex was behind the genderless behaviour and name.
The advantages of the above choices are reduced confusion. For you. If your name is Randolph and you go for Helen, if you're not thinking someone might say "hi I'm Frank" and you automatically say "I'm Randolph." Personal experience says that happens when you're more comfortable in your female persona. If you're thinking about how you look all the time, you're more focused and less likely to mis-introduce yourself. If you're a Jan and you absently answer "Jan", well, no harm no foul. If you answer "Eric" you can amend that to "Erica," or change an absentminded "Paul" to "Paula."
So even with three categories of names, I bet there are two types of girls in this audience: the ones with ambiguous or easily-converted names who use them and the ones who want a completely female name.
Your male name might be Jan, but you want to separate yourself from All Things Male, even if what you have could be female. So you go with Alicia. Or a Michael might like "Emily" but, no Emily is derivative of Emil so how about Celest or Amber?
Of course, you might choose your female name the same way you chose your male one: "if I was a girl, my parents were going to name me..."
I mentioned a long time ago how I selected Meg (or how Meg selected me). But I wonder what I would have done if the name that appeared was "Geraldine" or "Esmerelda" or "Heather."
Or Grinelda.
Most of us were given boy's names at birth. Most of us have taken on a girl's name at some point. I don't have hard numbers, but I think those statements are factual.
There are, as I said last week, three kinds of girl's names.
So there are three categories we can choose from.
And because nothing we do is ever simple, my readers reminded me there's another way to look at names. You might choose a name of someone you admire, friend or celebrity, totally outside the "what kind of name do I want?" category.
For a derivative name, Michael might turn into Michelle, Robert into Roberta, Martin into Martina.
If your name is sufficiently ambiguous you might keep it as-is. Remember "Pat" from Saturday Night Live? I don't think we ever did find out what sex was behind the genderless behaviour and name.
The advantages of the above choices are reduced confusion. For you. If your name is Randolph and you go for Helen, if you're not thinking someone might say "hi I'm Frank" and you automatically say "I'm Randolph." Personal experience says that happens when you're more comfortable in your female persona. If you're thinking about how you look all the time, you're more focused and less likely to mis-introduce yourself. If you're a Jan and you absently answer "Jan", well, no harm no foul. If you answer "Eric" you can amend that to "Erica," or change an absentminded "Paul" to "Paula."
So even with three categories of names, I bet there are two types of girls in this audience: the ones with ambiguous or easily-converted names who use them and the ones who want a completely female name.
Your male name might be Jan, but you want to separate yourself from All Things Male, even if what you have could be female. So you go with Alicia. Or a Michael might like "Emily" but, no Emily is derivative of Emil so how about Celest or Amber?
Of course, you might choose your female name the same way you chose your male one: "if I was a girl, my parents were going to name me..."
I mentioned a long time ago how I selected Meg (or how Meg selected me). But I wonder what I would have done if the name that appeared was "Geraldine" or "Esmerelda" or "Heather."
Or Grinelda.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Other Types of Girl Names
Yesterday, I wrote about girl names that are the "feminine form of" a male name. Karen suggested that might happen when parents happily decided to name their soon-to-be son "Harry" and when they found that he was lacking a necessary appendage, called him "Harriet."
Many names are strictly feminine names. These have no male equivalent. Hannah, Katherine, Elizabeth, Susan, Wendy, Wanda, Lisette, and many more.
And there are could-be-either names. Unisex, ambiguous, androgynous.... Call them what you will.
They might be nicknames like Pat (remember Pat from Saturday Night Live?) or Chris or Fran, or a given name like Devon, Robin, Kim, Jan, Morgan, Drew, Shannon, Taylor, Tracy, or Madison, Andrea, Avery, Brook, or Evelyn.
There's another sort-of category. I started yesterday's post by saying "boy names are boy names (until they aren't)." There are boy names that were liberated. Beverly, Hilary, Leslie, Shirley, Marian, and others, used to be strictly boy names. Then a female baby got hold of it, and once it becomes a girl name it never goes back. I'm guessing if you looked at the ratio of boys to girls with the names in the "ambiguous" category above, you'd find them drifting towards becoming girl's names.
(I was also looking for invented names ~ all names were invented, if you think about it ~ and of course came to "Wendy," which everyone knows, was invented by JM Barrie for the book Peter Pan. Except it probably wasn't, and it was probably a boy's name before that.)
(Another great invented name: Tom Rush was looking for a girl's name that implied a very large woman and decided on "Rotunda." Somehow, this never caught on as a popular name.)
Of course, this is all background for How Do We Choose Our Names, which will be the next topic, after the weekend funnies.
Many names are strictly feminine names. These have no male equivalent. Hannah, Katherine, Elizabeth, Susan, Wendy, Wanda, Lisette, and many more.
And there are could-be-either names. Unisex, ambiguous, androgynous.... Call them what you will.
They might be nicknames like Pat (remember Pat from Saturday Night Live?) or Chris or Fran, or a given name like Devon, Robin, Kim, Jan, Morgan, Drew, Shannon, Taylor, Tracy, or Madison, Andrea, Avery, Brook, or Evelyn.
There's another sort-of category. I started yesterday's post by saying "boy names are boy names (until they aren't)." There are boy names that were liberated. Beverly, Hilary, Leslie, Shirley, Marian, and others, used to be strictly boy names. Then a female baby got hold of it, and once it becomes a girl name it never goes back. I'm guessing if you looked at the ratio of boys to girls with the names in the "ambiguous" category above, you'd find them drifting towards becoming girl's names.
(I was also looking for invented names ~ all names were invented, if you think about it ~ and of course came to "Wendy," which everyone knows, was invented by JM Barrie for the book Peter Pan. Except it probably wasn't, and it was probably a boy's name before that.)
(Another great invented name: Tom Rush was looking for a girl's name that implied a very large woman and decided on "Rotunda." Somehow, this never caught on as a popular name.)
Of course, this is all background for How Do We Choose Our Names, which will be the next topic, after the weekend funnies.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
What's In a Name?
Boy names are boy names (until they aren't).
Historically, masculine names were assigned from words, from surnames, or from place names.
Roger: "famous spear" from the Germanic elements hrod "fame" and ger "spear"
Rodney: From a surname, originally derived from a place name, which meant "Hroda's island" in Old English (where Hroda is a Germanic given name meaning "fame")
Sometimes it can get weird and circular.
Pierce: From a surname which was derived from the given name Piers
Piers: Medieval form of Peter
Peter: Derived from the Greek Petros, meaning stone.
But like girl clothing, girl names are more complicated and interesting.
I see three kinds of girl names: derivative of male, all girl, and unisex. Yes, I have a reason for putting "unisex" under girl names, not boy names.
Derivative of male
Rarely will you see a male name defined as a "masculine form of ...." A search through a name page showed fewer than a dozen, and some are questionable. But if you look at a list of feminine names you will see a plethora of "feminine form of..."
Alana, Alanis, Alanna from Alan.
Alberta, Alexandra, Bobbi, Charlene, Georgette, Stephanie, Phyllis, Samantha, Michelle, and so on.
I'm guessing many of these appeared because some frustrated dad said "I'll never have a son to carry on my name! I'll call this one 'Josephine.'" Or "Frank was a powerful warrior/great scholar/historical figure! There's magic in that name. She shall be 'Francine.'"
The same website shows over 200 "feminine form of...," from Adamina (Adam) to Zavia (Xavier).
More on the other types tomorrow. I think y'all know where I'm going with this.
Historically, masculine names were assigned from words, from surnames, or from place names.
Roger: "famous spear" from the Germanic elements hrod "fame" and ger "spear"
Rodney: From a surname, originally derived from a place name, which meant "Hroda's island" in Old English (where Hroda is a Germanic given name meaning "fame")
Sometimes it can get weird and circular.
Pierce: From a surname which was derived from the given name Piers
Piers: Medieval form of Peter
Peter: Derived from the Greek Petros, meaning stone.
But like girl clothing, girl names are more complicated and interesting.
I see three kinds of girl names: derivative of male, all girl, and unisex. Yes, I have a reason for putting "unisex" under girl names, not boy names.
Derivative of male
Rarely will you see a male name defined as a "masculine form of ...." A search through a name page showed fewer than a dozen, and some are questionable. But if you look at a list of feminine names you will see a plethora of "feminine form of..."
Alana, Alanis, Alanna from Alan.
Alberta, Alexandra, Bobbi, Charlene, Georgette, Stephanie, Phyllis, Samantha, Michelle, and so on.
I'm guessing many of these appeared because some frustrated dad said "I'll never have a son to carry on my name! I'll call this one 'Josephine.'" Or "Frank was a powerful warrior/great scholar/historical figure! There's magic in that name. She shall be 'Francine.'"
The same website shows over 200 "feminine form of...," from Adamina (Adam) to Zavia (Xavier).
More on the other types tomorrow. I think y'all know where I'm going with this.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Simple Pleasure ~ What's in a Name
You're right.
Penina, one of the names I liked got 10% of the vote. It was a little little-girlish.
Levana was better, but only 15% liked it. I think it has an elegant sound, but the people have spoken.
Margalit (26%), I find hard to pronounce and I think it sounds like I'm trying too hard to match the Hebrew to the English name. Yes, most people do that but I've never been like most people.
Thanks to a long-ago discussion with my late father (which I won't relate here), I know he'd approve of Miera, as did 45% of you. And since my father's name is part of mine, this comes full circle.
Hebrew names are formally (your name) son/daughter of (father's name). I guess that's pretty common in different cultures. "Ben" or "ibn" in Jewish/Arabic culture. And depending on where he lived, Donald's offspring might be Donaldson, O'Donald, McDonald, or MacDonald.
For the record, Miera is pronounced May-ee-ra. It can't be My-ra because there's no hard "I" sound in Hebrew. It means "illminate." In Hebrew, it's מֵאִירָה.
So if Meg is ever called up to read from the Torah, she'll be Miera bet Huni Yosef.
Penina, one of the names I liked got 10% of the vote. It was a little little-girlish.
Levana was better, but only 15% liked it. I think it has an elegant sound, but the people have spoken.
Margalit (26%), I find hard to pronounce and I think it sounds like I'm trying too hard to match the Hebrew to the English name. Yes, most people do that but I've never been like most people.
Thanks to a long-ago discussion with my late father (which I won't relate here), I know he'd approve of Miera, as did 45% of you. And since my father's name is part of mine, this comes full circle.
Hebrew names are formally (your name) son/daughter of (father's name). I guess that's pretty common in different cultures. "Ben" or "ibn" in Jewish/Arabic culture. And depending on where he lived, Donald's offspring might be Donaldson, O'Donald, McDonald, or MacDonald.
For the record, Miera is pronounced May-ee-ra. It can't be My-ra because there's no hard "I" sound in Hebrew. It means "illminate." In Hebrew, it's מֵאִירָה.
So if Meg is ever called up to read from the Torah, she'll be Miera bet Huni Yosef.
Monday, November 4, 2013
What's In a Name?
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how our chosen names can hide our heritage. I mentioned that neither Meg (Margaret) nor Winters are Jewish names.
Jewish heritage passes from mother to child, so intermarriage can certainly produce a Jewish Winters, but I think most people would consider it British, not Jewish. Of course, those are not mutually exclusive.
Margaret, like Mary, is typically a Catholic name but one reader mentioned a Jewish friend named Margaret. I know a Jewish Margaret who prefers Peggy.
Jewish babies are assigned a Hebrew name. Traditionally, the Hebrew name is similar to the English name, so I did a bit of research.
Margaret does have Hebrew equivalents. So if I ever need to give my Jewish equivalent, I can safely choose from Levana, Margalit, Meira, or Penina. I kind of like the first and last ones. What do you think? There's a little poll to the right to choose your favourite.
Jewish heritage passes from mother to child, so intermarriage can certainly produce a Jewish Winters, but I think most people would consider it British, not Jewish. Of course, those are not mutually exclusive.
Margaret, like Mary, is typically a Catholic name but one reader mentioned a Jewish friend named Margaret. I know a Jewish Margaret who prefers Peggy.
Jewish babies are assigned a Hebrew name. Traditionally, the Hebrew name is similar to the English name, so I did a bit of research.
Margaret does have Hebrew equivalents. So if I ever need to give my Jewish equivalent, I can safely choose from Levana, Margalit, Meira, or Penina. I kind of like the first and last ones. What do you think? There's a little poll to the right to choose your favourite.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Hiding Our Heritage
I have a confession to make. Two actually.
I'm Jewish. And my name is not Meg Winters.
When the name Meg came into my consciousness (it was my name during a "past life regression." I won't discuss whether I believe in them or not; I was subject to a few like this one), I knew it was one of many short forms of Margaret. Margaret is one of those magical girl names which have dozens of nicknames: Meg, Peg, Marge, Maggie, Peggy, and on and on. (Side note: I once asked a woman I work with, who introduced herself to me as "Kimberly" if she ever used a short form of her name. She said "like 'Kim'?" and I said "well, yeah. Or 'Burley'." Yes, I lived.)
Margaret is never a Jewish name, often a Catholic name. A couple of people assumed "Meg" was short for "Megan," but being over the Age When Everyone Was Named Megan, I never thought of that. I doubt there's a woman my age named "Megan."
I'm not sure where Winters came from. Winters is a good British name, not a Jewish one.
So when I introduce myself ("call me Meg"), there's no Jewish clue. Even if I offer my last name, there's no Jewish "tell" there.
I don't hide my heritage. At game nights, I spoke with other "members of the tribe" and identified myself as such. But I'm hesitant.... "I belong to .... Where do you belong?" might mean a story. "Me too!" could be awkward, especially since nobody's acknowledged that I'm not what I appear.
I'm sure that's true of other girls I meet at t-events. We choose names that may or may not match our heritage. I never looked at a list of names and said "I need one that reflects history" and declared myself to be "Sarah Berkowitz," any more than Mike McMasters said "Abigail O'Toole. What else could I call myself?"
But we lose something.
I don't have a clue as to how important this is, or how to fix it, but I've been thinking about it a bit. A lot.
And I'm open to ideas, readers.
I'm Jewish. And my name is not Meg Winters.
When the name Meg came into my consciousness (it was my name during a "past life regression." I won't discuss whether I believe in them or not; I was subject to a few like this one), I knew it was one of many short forms of Margaret. Margaret is one of those magical girl names which have dozens of nicknames: Meg, Peg, Marge, Maggie, Peggy, and on and on. (Side note: I once asked a woman I work with, who introduced herself to me as "Kimberly" if she ever used a short form of her name. She said "like 'Kim'?" and I said "well, yeah. Or 'Burley'." Yes, I lived.)
Margaret is never a Jewish name, often a Catholic name. A couple of people assumed "Meg" was short for "Megan," but being over the Age When Everyone Was Named Megan, I never thought of that. I doubt there's a woman my age named "Megan."
I'm not sure where Winters came from. Winters is a good British name, not a Jewish one.
So when I introduce myself ("call me Meg"), there's no Jewish clue. Even if I offer my last name, there's no Jewish "tell" there.
I don't hide my heritage. At game nights, I spoke with other "members of the tribe" and identified myself as such. But I'm hesitant.... "I belong to .... Where do you belong?" might mean a story. "Me too!" could be awkward, especially since nobody's acknowledged that I'm not what I appear.
I'm sure that's true of other girls I meet at t-events. We choose names that may or may not match our heritage. I never looked at a list of names and said "I need one that reflects history" and declared myself to be "Sarah Berkowitz," any more than Mike McMasters said "Abigail O'Toole. What else could I call myself?"
But we lose something.
I don't have a clue as to how important this is, or how to fix it, but I've been thinking about it a bit. A lot.
And I'm open to ideas, readers.
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