(no subject)

[katallison]

I've been really enjoying the comments on my earlier post about names, and find myself moved to follow up by tossing out a few questions for anyone who feels like responding:

1) Your LJ user name--how did you come up with it, where did it come from? And do you have a different pseud for writing/lists/whatever? How do you decide when to use which?

2) Any stories about how your family chose your RL first/middle names? Is there something you were *almost* named until saner heads prevailed?

3) What's the coolest name you've encountered (either real or pseud), one you really wish you had?

Answering for myself: (a) Kat Allison is simply a slight revision of parts of my RL name; it's the only name I've ever used in fandom. (b) My mother once told me that, if my father had had his way, I would have been named "Ariel," which ... well, let's just say I'm very glad he lost that one; it would have been wildly incongruent with both my RL last name and my basic temperament (I'm not remotely ethereal and poetic enough to be an Ariel). And (c) there are two public figures whose names I've always envied: Tai Babilonia (figure skater) and Moon Landrieu (former mayor of New Orleans). Those are just ... *cool.*

Comments

[batdina.livejournal.com]

(a) My LJ user name came from my pseud's email address. The pseudonym comes from my real life middle name and the area of Philadelphia (the city where I was born) that I last lived when I was in grad school. When I stopped using my real name in fandom, I still wanted a name that sounded like a name, not a moniker. (b) I was "almost" Meredith, to be nicknamed "Merry", but most of my family were not native speakers of English and I believe it was my grandmother who said something like "What kind of a name is Mary for a yiddishe kinder?" and that was that. Of course, my parents were children when I was born, and there were no recently deceased [old] people to name me after, (there was a young cousin, but in Ashkenaz, we don't name for those who die young as it's bad luck) so my dad and my uncle read the Torah portion for the week I was born and chose my name that way: "The month of Adar ushers in a season of light and joy" so my Jewish name is literally light and joy (OraSimcha) and my American name is Cynthia Joy, which is just about the same thing. (c) Kalonymus Kalman Shapira, who was the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto. The man and his name fit each other perfectly and I love that.