What's In A (Random) Name? With Apologies to William Shakespeare

It's a random day here at my cottage by the sea.  The weather is a bit gloomy, rain on and off but, my garden is loving it and it's a perfect day for blogging.  I usually give you a photo of the sunset  at the end of my posts but, because today I'm concentrating on random, here it is at the beginning.


The end.

God's artwork never ceases to amaze me.

I was inspired to write today, by a prompt posed over at Mama Kat's Pretty Much Famous Writers Workshop.  She posed the question, "What did you want your name to be?"  Funny you should ask I pondered, because although my husband loves my name, and I think it looks good on others,  I have never been satisfied with it for myself.  When I was a little girl I was constantly changing it up.  While it's a tad embarrassing, we're all friends here, so I feel free to let ya in on a little bit of my crazy!  Besides, there is a moral to this story.

First off, my given name isn't actually Tia. When you reply to my email it may be a bit confusing because you can then see both of my names, and you may think, what's up with that?  So for all the two of you who want to know; here's what's up with that! 

My youngest grandchild is named Abigail Rose.  I love her name.  Abigail comes from the Hebrew and means, "The Father's Joy".  It doesn't get much better than that, and she's definitely her daddy's girl, so it sure does fit. Now you may be thinking, well that's certainly random.  But really, it's not.  I just wanted to show off a picture of my cute little granddaughter and it seemed the perfect way to squeeze it in.

Just two years before Abigail was born, and after having four rambunctious little boys, my daughter and son-in-law yearned to adopt a little girl. Pink started to dominate over at their house of blue.  It looked like someone shook up a bottle of Pepto Bismol and let-r-loose all over their house, car, and backyard.  A princess was born, and began her reign at their household.  There Are Those Who Think Families Happen By Chance, is a post I wrote about my daughter's heart for adoption and the gift we got when this little one was born.  They named her Emma, from the Hebrew meaning, "God is with us".  Emma and Abigail, beautiful sisters with beautiful names. And what do ya know?  I snuck in another picture of my darling granddaughters.


Now randomly,  back to my original story, and the name given to me at my birth.  Lori, which I believe originates from the English and means... "Truck".  Yeah, so here's how that happened.


When I was about eleven my mom sprung it on me, that she had never really liked my given Christian name.  She told me that she didn't even choose it for heavens sake!  Her first choice had been Mary, but I had a cousin born just before me and they called her Mary so... My mom told me that in the hospital after my birth, when she was using the rest room, the nurse came in to find out and record my name for the birth certificate.  My Grandma was there and she told the nurse, since my mom was indisposed at the time, that my name would be Lori.  She just happened to like the name Lori and she said it was a derivative of Mary, which may or may not be true but, there you have it.  The women in my family are doers.  The baby needed naming and she needed naming right now!  So my grandma took care of it, bam!  You're welcome.


In other words, Mary became Lori in the time it takes to turn off the bathroom light.  From the original Hebrew, Mary means, "Gods Gift," "Wished For Child," "Sea of Bitterness" - What? Screeeeech!
"Sea of Bitterness"? I believe that last definition was from the Greeks.  The name my grandmother gave me, was the name that everybody called me for the first 20 or so years of my life but, it wasn't Mary, and it wasn't Tia which, is what I'm called today.


It wasn't Mitzi either, which is a name I randomly chose for myself once, back in Junior High School.  I had recently graduated grammar school and being that I was starting anew, I  decided I might as well use the opportunity to forge a new identity with a fresh, new, name.  Henceforth I was to be called, Mitzi.  I forged signed  all my own paperwork at school anyway, being an extremely independent child, an understatement for those of you who know me.  I also had a very Irish surname so, Mitzi for a first name was an unusual choice, to say the least.  Imagine if you will, something like, Mitzi O'Shenanigan.  (Obviously not my real name) but, you get the picture.  I don't even remember how I pulled that name out of the hat at the time, but in the Hebrew Mitzi means, "Small and Bitter". Just like Mary which supposedly has the distinction of having Lori as a derivative.  Seriously, I don't make this stuff up.  You can Google it.  Ironic or random? You decide.   


I'd just transferred from a small, religious school which had about ten kids to a class, all of whom had become best friends, to a huge, over-crowded public school where I was completely lost in the crowd.  Bitter?  Much you think?  I guess not so random after all.  The name Mitzi lasted for the entire semester of 7th grade until, when I came back to school after a break someone called out, "Mitziiiiii", and I didn't even look back.  I can be like that; don't judge.  Every girl reserves the right to change her mind now and then.  So, then I went back to my original given name, "Lori".  "Truck?" 

When my eldest sister started having babies, (my 8 beautiful, awesome nieces and nephews) they all started calling me Tia, which is, the Spanish word for Auntie.  The fact that we aren't Mexican, or even hail from any Spanish speaking country has nothing to do with it.  She and the kids called me Tia out of love.  They nicknamed me the name that they, and all their friends and family would call me to this day.  It makes me feel warm and happy and loved and special, and that's what your name should do, right? I have since Googled the name Tia and found to my delight that it is also of the Celtic origin meaning, "Princess".  It can also be traced back to the Greek, in ancient times, and was an abbreviation for names like Dorothea and Althea.  The Mythological Thea was the Greek Goddess of Light, Mother of the Sun, Moon and Dawn.  And in Japanese, it means "Angel".  

So the moral of this story is, (remember, I told you there would be a moral to this story). Do NOT go to the bathroom after you have a baby if your mother is there, or she might randomly name your baby something you hate!


Hello, you can just call me Tia because, after all, what's in a name?

When I was little all I ever wanted to do was grow up and raise babies, which I've been doing (in my humble opinion) successfully, since 1976.  I always knew I wanted to be a mom and grow a big family full of kids and pets.  I started off with pets and used up a few of my favorite names on them.  Then I had my first daughter and I called her Tara. The name Tara originates from the Gaelic and one of the meanings is "God Fearing And Pious".  Another is, "Smiling".  As you may be starting to get the gist of, names can have many different meanings and if you Google hard enough you can find just the one you like!  Tara is the mother of those sweet baby girls you met earlier in my post and her sweet hubby Jason stands right beside her here.  His name means, "Healer," and kudos to his mom because that's a great name.  I unfortunately can't take any credit for that one.  Tara however, was my idea, and another meaning for her name is,"Star on a Hill". Which it turns out is ironic because, when I decided years later to be a foster mom, my first foster baby was named Michael and, he had a biological sister named "Star Hill".  Wow!  My life is not only random, it may be ironic, and I think I just might be psychic.  All right, I concur, perhaps just a wee bit psychotic.  Whatever, it's all random.  


I went on to birth, foster and adopt, a whole pack-a-kids over the years.  Ten of them to be exact. I also had many dogs and cats and various other creatures great and small. You might be starting to see a trend towards my love of names and naming; I know I am.  Let's just say that it's a good thing my family stopped growing  when it did because, after naming my last dog Maggie, I thought I'd used up all the best names I could think of.  So when my last kid came along, I named her Maggie as well.  Yep, I really did.  It was the name I had chosen for my beloved Irish Wolfhound, so I didn't want it to be lost.  I wanted that name to live on, therefore my youngest daughter, was named for my favorite dog.  It's true and I'm darn proud of it and so is she!  She's just glad that I didn't name her after any of my childhood dogs, because then her name might be Flash or Putzie.


The origin of the name Maggie is Ireland, and there is also a saint by that name.  It means "Pearl" which all the books say is similar to the name Elizabeth which was my grandmother's name.  I gave one of my other daughter's the middle name Elizabeth too, only I spelled it Elisabeth with an s, because that is how her great grandmother spelled it.  Just to solidify all of this for you, during my extensive research whilst Googling the name Mitzi and its meaning, I found that it meant small or bitter and in so doing I looked up the name Mary which is what my mother originally wanted to call me.  Holy shmokes, it also meant bitter!  Then again, it was also the name of the mother of Jesus.  So I guess it all worked out in the end. Random?  I think not.

By the way, I didn't do all this naming on my own.  Oh, no siree.  That guy to your left there. He helped!  Yeah, go ahead buddy have a drink, you deserve it, and after this post I think anybody would agree.  

I hope you have been amused and, at the very least will forgive me now. Just keep in mind that I write this blog because I don't golf. 


So in answer to the question from Mama Kat's workshop: What did you want your name to be?


Grace.  I wanted my name to be, Grace.

God loves you and I do too!

Blessings,

Tia  :)


Oh, and by the way, for all you Lori's out there - Here's the real low down.


Lori


Latin: honor, fame, spirit
French: crowned with laurel
Hebrew: lovely and beautiful,
             wise person, smart one.  Oh, snap!