We usually have no say in the names we are given or the subsequent “shorts” our names evolve into.  A nickname can be part of the whole or completely unrelated to our given name.  Some people end up with names they really like and others have a difficult time with theirs.  Names that are hard to spell or hard to pronounce or that rhyme with offensive things can plague an individual for life.  Yet, the sound or audible vibration, which is essentially what a name entails, identifies you and gets your attention.  It belongs to you.

I liked my name growing up.  At least I liked what my family chose to call me by.  It was not ordinary.  Matter of fact, I didn’t meet another person called by my name until I was in high school.  Then, in my early twenties I became a member of a religious sect that made me think differently about what I wished to be called by.  Unbeknownst to the sect members, I introduced myself by my formal given name and not by the nickname that had identified me all my life.

My Catholic mother named me after the Virgin Mary, “Victorious Mary”, but my moniker was fitting and an atypical derivative.  Growing up, the only time I heard “Victoria Marie” was when I was in trouble.  It was not a good sound.  The aristocratic, even royal, connotation my given first name possessed established a space between myself and this pious group.  At least in my mind, it encouraged and allowed the advantage of a vague superiority.  Most of these people did not share the checkered past I could boast.

A new era in my life began.  Donning my birth name spawned the slow deterioration of my young, budding identity.  Hearing people call me by this foreign name wasn’t easy.  Every time I heard  it, a little voice would say, “That’s YOU.”  I had to be convinced.  When some of my own family members started referring to me by this “new” name, it really got weird.  Almost twenty years passed, and I no longer identified with myself at all.  I was not this or that.  I once referred to myself as “a floating nothing” for more reasons than one.  The sect encouraged the abandonment of individual identity and selfish pursuits for the good of all, but I lost even the ability to acknowledge my own existence as a real person.  I was an actor in a play.  A long, realistic play with profound plot twists for the protagonist.  I became a stranger to myself.

In recent years I have slowly let those I love, who met me after my early twenties, call me by my childhood name.  It’s really hard.  It makes me uncomfortable.   I guess they heard family members refer to me by my familiar name, or they found out some other way, and it made sense to them.  That was my name.  Now I’m almost fifty.  How do you tell people who have known you for decades that they call you by a name you can’t relate to?  Or, how do you allow people to refer to you by a name that seems so damn personal, so private, even secret?  Do you change your name?  It seemed like a good idea to me.

I talked to a friend and asked him what he thought of the name I’d chosen to become.  It’s really like becoming a new person.  I’d done that before.  This was my third round.  He thought the name “Amber” sounded like a stripper and was not a good choice for me.  That made me laugh.  Friends are good for that…  But,  I really liked it.  Amber takes centuries, even a millennium times ten, to become what it is.  Is that not perfect for me?  A constant work in progress…  A being that takes lifetimes to complete…  He just laughed.  He thought I should think more about it.  But, I think he gets it.  Friends are good for that too.  They let you pour out your confusion and they just encourage you to move forward into your life.

I haven’t actually decided what to do about my name.  So many people know me by a name that’s not my name, but to tell them to call me by what use to be my familiar name seems so strange because hardly anyone uses it now.  Even one of my own sisters started calling me by a stranger name that she thought up and thinks is a sweet term of endearment.  Every time I hear her call me that, a little voice says, “Why is she calling you by that name?  That’s definitely NOT your name.”  I am nameless at this point.  Every name is strange to my ears.  Will there be a time when I know who I am?  When I can identify with the sound someone makes to identify me and get my attention?  Good grief!  I hope so…