What's in a name?

When my father pushed open the door and walked into my sisters room to berate her for slamming the door, we all panicked a little. We always did, when one of us was in trouble. Then we relaxed a little, when we realised it wasn’t specifically any of us that was in trouble this time.  We could all quite clearly hear what was said. “What?” was the defensive whine from my sister, as she was surprised, by my father, suddenly opening the door. “Who do you think you are Missy!”. You don’t slam the door like that!” (whoops, red rag to a bull!) Oh, that term often used by my parents on any of my older sisters. Missy, that was almost as bad as being called by your full name.

Did you ever have that? It always seemed to be my mother who said it that way. When you were asked to do something and maybe you didn’t. Then later when your mother realised you hadn’t, your name was called out. Not quietly, and not just your first name, (providing they could remember which of the eight children you were). It was sometimes a series of names, rattled off, often, oldest to youngest, in a hit and miss attempt to label the right child, and get their attention, when in a hurry to get on with what was going to be said to that individual. I remember sometimes after running through the list of my older sister’s names in an attempt to get to me, the dog’s name was called out before actually getting to mine. Really made you feel special that!

But you knew you were really in trouble of sorts, when your mother loudly declared your full name. To the household, street, and occasionally the entire neighbourhood. (Not that our families names weren’t already known to most). Mother would call all of your names. Being Catholic we all had a middle name. I, unfortunately, had two middle names. I still do, and in some ways it has been helpful to separate me from others with the same first and last name (of which there are a few). At high school, I was the only one with two middle names and whenever they printed a programme for sports or presentations, they had to leave an extra column, just for my single initial. It was funny to look at a list of names and there was one just standing out by itself. It was seldom appreciated by engravers of any trophies when they had to redress the line, engraving the extra initial on a trophy. It was probably a good thing I wasn’t a sports champion or high achiever for the school.

So there it was. If your mother needed to locate you, or berate you, your full name would be called out (eventually), when mother insisted on getting your attention. Fortunately at least, most of us were simply named after the saints. Which was acceptable to the neighbourhood. But not all of us…..

(continued tomorrow)