6. The Name Game
What’s in a name?
Hannah. I fell in love with the name when I was a young girl reading every Nancy Drew mystery I could get my hands on. For those who don’t know, Nancy Drew was a precocious, butinsky kid who solved mysteries. Part of Nancy’s backstory was that she lost her mother when she was three and was raised by her busy lawyer-father and a housekeeper-nanny named Hannah. I loved the relationship between Nancy and Hannah; I loved how the older woman dispensed wisdom as easily as she handed out cookies.
It wasn’t until I was in my late teens that I learned my maternal grandmother’s middle name was Hannah. She hated the name and flipped a nut when she learned I planned to name my way-in-the-future-firstborn-daughter Hannah. I think she would have been pleased had she lived to meet my baby girl. The minute Tim and I learned our baby bundle would be of the pink variety, we began calling her Hannah Leigh. Then, a funny thing happened, Hannah was born on Tim’s grandmother’s 100th birthday. Tim never met her, but suggested we incorporate her name into Hannah’s. A lovely thought, so we named our firstborn, Hannah-Leigh Elizabeth. Pleased as punch I was when Tim’s mother came to meet her newest grandchild. “Our daughter’s name is Hannah-Leigh Elizabeth,” I beamed, “the Elizabeth being added in honor of your mother,” I gushed. Within seconds I went from happy new mom to potential star on an episode of She Snapped. Apparently, the 100-year-old deceased woman’s name was Ellen, not Elizabeth. I sent eye-daggers my mate’s way then laughed my ass off when he rightly said, “We’re lucky her name isn’t Hannah Nana because I only ever heard her referred to as Nana.”
Gotta love him — I do.
Jessica. Tim and I were worlds apart on naming our second daughter. There were way too many names that we loved. The only problem was that we couldn’t love the same name at the same time. We both loved Haley, but Tim’s brother Joey and his wife Traci had chosen Kaleigh for their daughter’s name, so we abandoned that choice for obvious rhyming reasons. Soon, our top contenders were Shay, and Sutton, and Colleen, and Callie, and Tess, and Ava, and Jessica, and Kathleen.
The weird thing about Jessica and Kathleen is this: I am a reader, some might say a voracious reader. I have read many of William Shakespeare’s works, so I knew the Bard is credited with penning the name, Jessica. Scholars who research these types of things say the name was first found in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Seeing as my nose was most always pressed between the pages of Shakespeare’s works, the natural assumption was that I chose the name Jessica — that assumption is wrong. Jessica was Tim’s first choice. As for Kathleen, the natural assumption was that my Irishman chose that name — that assumption is wrong. Kathleen is my favorite Irish lass name. I find it lyrical, and I always imagine little Kathleens to be a bit on the mischievous side of life.
Anyway, Tim and I became desperate and foolhardy. We each wrote our top three choices on a piece of paper, dragged our near-two-year-old daughter, Hannah, into the fray and had her choose one name from his list and one name from my list. Within seconds our soon-to-be bundle was named, Jessica Kathleen Belle. Hannah decided she needed to be in on the name game and insisted the Disney character’s name be part of her new sister’s moniker. So, there you have it. The O’Brien Name Game in all its glory.