Daily writing prompt

If you could have something named after you, what would it be?

View all responses

If I could have something named after me, it would be a SOMEONE rather than a something. I feel like it’s a great way to honour loved ones and keep family stories alive. It’s also a great way to keep connections with people who are no longer of this earth.

I was named after both of my grandfathers, Carla for Carl and Joanne for John. And I kept this theme going with my own children. Bella-Lena Bryn was created because I wanted to name my firstborn after my gramma, Caroline who had been nicknamed “Lena” and Bryn came from her dad, Bryan.

My son’s name is Tazman Garridon. Tazman was just pulled out of thin air and to this day I still love the uniqueness of it but Garridon is a name I embarrassingly admit I made up. I wanted to name my son after both of his grandfathers, Garry and Don. So there it is. Makes me feel like I can hardly laugh at the memes I see poking fun at the names you often see today, Kayden/Jayden/Hayden and Brynleigh/Eveleigh/Kingsleigh etc. Although I do believe my dreamt up names rise above those.

My thirdborn is Cordelia Mary. Cordelia from two Canadian icons, it’s the name Anne from Anne of Green Gables wished she’d had and also the name of a song by The Tragically Hip. The namesake “Mary” is her great aunt who we had been very close to and at the time that I was pregnant, she was battling breast cancer and so I hoped she would see it as a sweet gesture and homage.

And though I wasn’t there for the birth or naming of my fourth baby, I believe he also fits into this pattern because he was named after a grandfather, Sidney, and his middle name Thomas is his bio mom’s surname.

Even though I would be absolutely and completely flattered if one of my kids decided to name a baby after me, I don’t really know what that would look like. I do not like my names. Both Carla and Joanne are so bland, boring, typical, drab etc. The dullness of especially my first name and the fact that my elementary school, which wasn’t very big, housed two other Carla’s, was the driving factor for naming my kids names that no other kid in THEIR school would ever have. And I think I achieved this.

I was so bothered by my humdrum names that as kid I announced one day at the supper table, going forward I wanted to be known as “CJ” and not Carla. To which my parents laughed. And then my dad said, “Carla please do the dishes” and I realized they would never abide by my wishes.