A listener’s question about the name she was almost given at birth prompts the hosts to share their own experiences being named — or nearly being named — something else. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “What We Might Have Been Named”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.
I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette.
Becky Green asks, did you have an almost name?
I was almost Jocelyn. However, there was a nurse’s strike the week I was born. My mother spent an entire week in the maternity ward by herself. And she started reading the novel Rebecca in the hospital, and hence I was named Rebecca instead of the preplanned Jocelyn.
Oh, that’s a great story. It is a great story, and it reminds me of going through my parents’ love letters, which I’ve mentioned to you before, which has been quite an experience. My dad gave me a huge stack of them before he died, and I’m learning all these things about their romance and things that I didn’t know. But I’m up to the part now where my mother is pregnant and she writes a letter to my dad who was traveling and she says, what do you think about the name Karen? I really like the name Karen for the wee one.
Oh, that would have been the right time of the year you were born. Yeah. Yeah. Right. In the fifties. Karen would have been a popular name then. Absolutely. I know. So I was almost a Karen. I’m not sure how they came out, came up with Martha.
Well, Martha was a fairly common name then, too. Yeah. You know, my sisters used to tease me that my name would have been Gertrude, which I think is not true at all. I think they just spelled, like, the most inappropriate girl’s name they could find.
That started with a G? Yeah, that started with a G. And for a long time, my little sister called me Gertie. Like, not even really, like, to tease me. That just became the name that she called me was Gertie. It was Gertie.
Oh, my gosh. I’m partly influenced by Drew Barrymore in E.T., I think, who was, of course, very adorable. So I didn’t mind very much.
You didn’t? No, I never really had a problem with it. I had a nickname, and nicknames always felt like, okay, that’s cool. They think highly enough of me to give me a nickname, so who cares? And again, Drew Barrymore in E.T. was very cute.
Well, I’m wondering if our listeners have stories like this, either the shock of finding out that you were going to be named something else like I had or an affectionate family name that arose. Yeah, particularly if it could have gone all wrong. Like what was that other horrific name that you could have been called? Let us know.
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