what's in a name

shandy has challenged us again to answer the following...

"tell us about your name! yep, that's right... your name. how did your parents come up with it?... is there a story behind it?.... do you like your name?... if you could have named yourself, would it have been the same or something different? "

my name...hmm. well my mother was never very original about anything. so you are probably thinking, how did she come up with the name celeste? my father really had no say in any of our names - he let her have her way after pregnancy, labor and delivery. i'd say who could blame him. my mother named me and my siblings after people she knew - unoriginal. celeste was her best friend in college. celeste lives on long island and i probably haven't seen her in 25-30 years - my dad saw her a few years ago i think. if i was a boy, my father wanted to name me miles. thank goodness i wasn't a boy.

growing up having a name that was different was not easy. of course, the fact that my name rhymed with pest wasn't easy either. i also rue the day that celeste's pizza hit the market - cries of abondonza and mama celeste would ring down the school's halls. in high school, one girl took to calling me mama leone - no idea where that came from. the only true nickname i had in my life was c - yes the letter c and only one friend in high school called me that.

as a child i did wish i had a different name - something common and everyday like jennifer or susan or christine - no offense to any of you jennifers or susans or christines out there. it would have been nice to have a name that (a) people could easily spell, (b) i wasn't asked to spell every time i ordered something, and (c) that people didn't misread ( i get collette or chelsea a lot.) i can't say i cared for my name - i threatened a good part of my life to change it and i should have when i was married, by that time however it had stuck.

and my middle name - well my mother didn't give me one. no one believed me growing up. they figured with a name like celeste for the first name, my mother must have given me an absolutely horrific second name. nope. nada. nothing. i took my maiden name when i was married because i couldn't stand not having a middle name. remember when those monograms sweaters and little purses were popular? i couldn't have one because i had no middle initial. thanks mom!

now i'm ok with it for really what's in a name?