Names Names Names

Elizabeth is too fancy. Liz is too short. Betsy is too old-fashioned. Beth is my aunt's name. Eliza reminds me of the character from the Wild Thornberry's. Libby is... right.

If you haven't guessed, Libby is my name. I love it. I love my name. It's uncommon, but it isn't something queer like Fuchsia Lilly or something like that. It's perfect. It's me. And although Elizabeth is my real name, I've never gone by it in my life. Ever. I refuse. It's not that I don't like it. Elizabeth is actually a really pretty name, in my opinion. But it isn't me. Whenever I hear the name Elizabeth, it makes me think of two old British ladies having tea and scones together. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just not who I am.

I'm Libby. What do you think of when you read my name? Obviously, I'm a girl. It's a girl name. I would be utterly surprised if there was a boy named Libby. But readers, if you know a boy named Libby, that's cool too (If I even have any readers... ha). What else can you tell, just by hearing my name? Could you tell that I'm fifteen? That I'm a sophomore in high school? Well, you could probably guess that last one by reading my age, but... I digress. Could you tell that I kinda like school, even though I sometimes act like I don't, or that I'm on speech team? Or how about that I redid my room over the summer?

Names have connotations. They just do. If you don't like your name, well, tough noodles. Just kidding. Make it your own! My parents gave me this "nickname" (I hate that word. Libby isn't just some nickname that only cool people get to call me; it's my name) when I was a baby. But I wouldn't go by it if I didn't like it. Go for whatever floats your boat. Make it you. If your name is Agatha Jane Winifred Graham XXII, and you hate it, change it! There are so many possibilites out there. Aggie. Janie. Wini. Fred. Oh, and don't change your name just because other people don't like it. Do it for you.

Sorry. I didn't really mean to get all preachy there. But I guess there will be questions about why I named my blog what I did. It has its own connotation to it, doesn't it? Some will think "Oh this girl has a life full of secrets and this is her way of letting the world know about her...." Blah blah blah. I actually don't really know why I named my blog what it is. I just looked out of my bedroom window and saw a tree moving in the wind. And I thought of it. Like that.

I think it's perfect. It's like this exercise we did in English the other day. We were all given a poem, without a title. We had to read it, give it a title, and then find support in the poem to back up our titles. The poem was about something small that appears in the night, quiet and discreet. I thought it was about snow. Other people thought it was about how our society is pretty much damned. One kid thought it was about miners.

It turns out, the poem was Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath. Boy, we were all wrong. But I like that exercise because we got to name a poem something we though fit, something we thought went a long with the connotation of the poem.

I don't really know what fascinates me so much about names. People always say "Oh, you're definitely a Sarah," or "You totally seem like a Maddy!" Everyone is a good representation of their name. Rather, your name is a good representation of yourself.

Here's a link to Mushrooms by Sylvia Plath: http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/sylvia-plath/mushrooms

Love, Libby