Why my mother didn't have my brothers pick out two names (just in case) really baffles me. Why she didn't encourage them to be more receptive to the possibility of having a sister is ludicrous. Why she didn't just name me Jimmy anyways or maybe something close to Jimmy like Jamie to ease the sting my brothers felt has always puzzled me. It was almost like they were set up to resent me right from the start. My mother even bought into the whole idea of me being a boy by not having a secret back-up name picked out for me if I was a girl. WTF? Welcome to the family, you stinking baby girl with no name! You little unwelcome shithead!
When my mother started having children, she claimed if she ever had the little girl she claimed she wanted so much she would name her Debbie. Is my name Debbie? NO! The reason I wasn't given that name is because my aunt had a girl a year or so before I arrived and named her Debbie. Since the RULEBOOK clearly states that there can only be one Debbie per family, it was back to the drawing board when it came time to name me. I guess that RULEBOOK didn't include chapters covering things like choosing a back-up name or selecting a middle name either. I hope those chapters are included now so little shitheads like me aren't stuck with lame names (Moon Unit comes to mind) and no middle names.
Where my mother came up with the name Karen has always been a mystery to me. She doesn't even know. Was it one of the "hot" females names that year? Nope! Was it a family name? Nope! Was I named after a family friend? Nope! I guess they just tossed some names in a hat and picked one and forgot to pick a second one for a middle name. I guess picking the name Karen was such a grueling task that no one could come up with or even suggest a possible middle name to go with it. I can almost picture how the whole thing happened. Throughout my life I have gone through the list of female names many times and have found a handful of names that would have fit nicely with Karen. Each time I find one that "fits," it makes that old nagging feeling of being unimportant rear its ugly head and makes me wonder why my own family couldn't have picked a sweet little name for their new bundle of joy new little shithead.
One of the many reasons I grew up feeling like a such a freak was due to my lack of having a middle name. I guess it may seem trivial to most people, but most people have a middle name. Most people are designed to fit in right from the get go and were not given an instant conversation piece. Whenever asked what my middle name is, I always get that "Yeah, right!" look when I tell people I don't have one. Most people immediately think I'm lying to cover up the fact that I got stuck with some horrendous name like Gertrude or Bertha (my apologies to all the Gertrude's and Bertha's in the world, but your name sucks in my humble opinion). Maybe I'm just jealous because I don't have a middle name. When left to my own devices (which is a dangerous thing to do), I gave myself my own unique middle name. My story of having a mother who craved Ovaltine while she was pregnant with me is a much nicer one to tell people than describing how braindead my family can be at times. So there you have it...I named myself. Bing! Bang! Boom!
Now to add insult to injury, I always thought it sucked being born on September 5th. The year I was born (the wheel still hadn't been invented), September 5th fell on Labor Day (the first Monday of September). The main reason I felt as I did about my birthday was because many times my birthday fell on the first day of school. For a child, that seemed like a fate worse than death. After becoming a parent, the first day of school seemed like a blessing! During those years when my birthday fell on the first day of school, I always felt like my birthday was the secondary event of the day almost like an afterthought. I guess that was due to all the chaos the first day of school brings to any household. My parents had 4 children to get ready for school and send on our way out the door and into the caring tutelage of our new brain bruisers, the teachers.
Risk takers
Idealists
Good sense of humor
Hard working
Attention seeking
Secretive
Sensitive
MISCELLANEOUS FACTS:
Famous last born children: Howard Stern, Jay Leno, Ralph Nadar, Bill Gates and Danny DeVito
Tend to go against the norm
Make the biggest stirs in life
Know no boundaries
QUEEN OVALTINE aka MILDRED RATCHED/RED KITTEN FACTS:
My youngest son was born on Labor Day also and the doctor who delivered him was born on Labor Day. We were all 25 years apart.
My great grandfather and I shared the same birthday and I grew up to share the same profession. My grandmother died on my 9th birthday.
Recently I looked up what famous people were also born on my birthday or I on theirs:
Freddie Mercury, Jack Daniel, Jesse James and Raquel Welsh.
Monday's child is fair of face,LAST BORN TRAITS:
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day
Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.
-AUTHOR UNKNOWN-
Risk takers
Idealists
Good sense of humor
Hard working
Attention seeking
Secretive
Sensitive
MISCELLANEOUS FACTS:
Famous last born children: Howard Stern, Jay Leno, Ralph Nadar, Bill Gates and Danny DeVito
Tend to go against the norm
Make the biggest stirs in life
Know no boundaries
QUEEN OVALTINE aka MILDRED RATCHED/RED KITTEN FACTS:
My youngest son was born on Labor Day also and the doctor who delivered him was born on Labor Day. We were all 25 years apart.
My great grandfather and I shared the same birthday and I grew up to share the same profession. My grandmother died on my 9th birthday.
Recently I looked up what famous people were also born on my birthday or I on theirs:
Freddie Mercury, Jack Daniel, Jesse James and Raquel Welsh.
I am a last born. However there is such a gap between me and my brothers that I am also a first born.
ReplyDeleteAnd copped the negatives from both.
My middle name (and indeed the full version of my first name) were only used when I was in deep shit.
I don't use the middle one and only go by the shortened version of the first (I went to some trouble to get my passport in that version, worked as it, pay taxes as it and cringe when anyone uses the other).
You share your birthday with some special people.
Mine has been associated with disasters - a firestorm which tore through our city demolishing 500 homes and a train crash which killed eighty.
But the good thing about your birthday is that it was the day you were born.
DeleteBoth my daughters have doubled barrelled first names, and neither of them use them. There we were thinking it would make them sound a bit different, and here they are wanting to blend in. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteYou're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.
DeleteMy father has no middle name either. But he was a last born, but first born in the USA. I hate my name, be it first and/or middle so what the hell. I am not a last born but a first born. I also have never had Ovaltine. I heard all about the choices my mom had about my name. I am thankful I am a girl because the boy name was my grandfather and she hated it too (ralph) None of the girl names she picked were good so I didn't have a chance in hell.
ReplyDeleteI guess I'm going to have to start calling you Ralph...to the moon, Alice! Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever had Ovaltine either. Well, maybe as a kid I did but I don't really remember.
DeleteKaren? And here I thought you were a nurse in a Ken Kesey novel.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a middle-name either. I've met a lot of people who not only have middle-names, but that's the name they go by instead of there first, which I've never understood.
Oh Kirk, and here I thought I had you fooled! :)
DeleteI'll bet you've had someone at sometime enter an 'N' for none in the middle name box on a form.
ReplyDeleteAnd now for Kirk. There are big families that name all their sons after the dad (first name) and then a different middle name. John Pete, John Bob, John Frank, etc. And then the sons go by the middle name. I, on the other hand was a typo. Was supposed to be Michael Robert but it got put down as Robert Michael. Robert being my dad's first name. So I've been Mike my whole life. Except for anything related to the government. Then I'm Robert. It's been and still is a pain and an irritation my whole life. I tell people, never use your kids middle name.
NMN
DeleteI just want to be called Anonymous so I can blend. You know what I tell people? No, you probably don't want to know so we'll skip that that one. When it comes to names, you're sunk no matter what you choose.
The story goes that I was going to be named Sean but I had an older cousin named Sean that was killed as a toddler so then plans were changed. My middle name is my father's first name and it's a very uncommon name so I like that. Seriously you came out unscathed, since it was little boys that might have been doing the naming, you could have been called Ovaltine or Sendherback!
ReplyDeleteYou know, while I was doing genealogy research it blew my mind how many families I found that would keep naming the children the same name if one child died. To me it seemed somewhat gruesome, but I guess back then it was what people did. They recycled names. I like melodic (did I spell that right?) sounding names...ones that just roll off your tongue. Sendherback just doesn't get it lol
DeleteAs you know, I have a sister named Karen. Her middle name is René, which I think rolls off the tongue nicely. However, I don't like her, so there's that.
ReplyDeleteI also have a sister named Debbie...although she dropped the "I" because she's an affected twat. My dad wanted to name her Jacqueline, after Ms. Bouvier Kennedy, but my mother was afraid she would be called Jackie, which for some reason she didn't like.
My grandmother had no middle name.
I would have loved Ovaltine for a middle name.