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Showing posts with label LOL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LOL. Show all posts

Sunday, August 2, 2009

LOL 7: What's in a name?

My second Living Out Loud entry.
When people ask me my middle name I ask, "which one?". I was born Sarah Catherine Elizabeth. Sarah Catherine was my great-grandma on my dad's side and Sarah Elizabeth was my great-great grandma on my mom's side. I love my name. Not many people will actually admit it. I love having family history right there.
I'm very protective of the "H" at the end of Sarah. People at work constantly leave the H off even though we've worked together for 12 years. It's annoying. When people ask, "Is that Sarah with or without the 'H'?" I proudly answer, "With." I can't explain my attachment to one letter other than it's my name. I always do my darnedest to make sure I spell other people's names correctly and feel the same courtesy should be made to me.
Putting all my names on "official" documents was interesting. Sometimes I was able to put Sarah Catherine E. on these documents, but I usually ended up having to drop the Elizabeth all together.
I was the last of my surname to get married. I had always said growing up that I was just going to tack on my husband's last name to the great list of names since all of them meant something. Then I got engaged. There began the internal debate on keeping all of them and having five names. On the way home from meeting the florist, I brought up to my mom that I was thinking about dropping Elizabeth when I added on my hubby's last name. I promised her that when we had a kid and if it was a girl that I was use Elizabeth in her name. Mom agreed and when I filled out the paper work after getting hitched, I dropped the Elizabeth and kept my maiden name as my second middle name.
I miss Elizabeth sometimes when I fill out paperwork. I didn't think I would. It's just a name after all, right? But it was a part of me, who I was and what I was known by for 25 years. I think I'm allowed to miss it.