Unit 1 Short Response

When it came time fore my parents to pick my name, my mother knew that she wanted my nickname to be Nicki but did not want Nicole to be my first name. My dad's name starts with a 'J', as does my older brother's, so he wanted my name to start with one as well. He wanted to call me Joy, to be exact. My mother said no, thank goodness, and countered with Jennifer. I was thus named Jennifer Nicole Kent.

I was actually obsessed with my full name growing up. I wanted it to have meaning and felt that Jennifer was too common and simple. I also only ever heard it when I was in trouble so needless to say, I hated my first name.  I felt that my nickname, Nicki, was spelled too "alphabet simple" and changed it to be spelled N-i-k-k-i. Many people spelled it that way so I ended up changing it again to N-i-c-c-i. I also did not want to follow the Kent way of life, so I could not wait for the day I got to change my last name. I believed at the time that the meaning of a name could determine who a person would grow up to be. You know, like if you name a cat Odin, after the God of War, then you were destined to have a holy terror on your hands.I hoped if I researched my name a little I could find a reason to appreciate it. Alas, the search I did revealed that Jennifer was a variant of the name Guinevere.

Are you kidding me?! She cheats on her husband, the King, with his right hand man! Who in their right mind would want to grow up to be like her?! I officially HATED my first name and despised anyone who called me by it. I laugh about this all now as I think back. Eventually I came to realize that our lives are our own and they are what we make of them. I know that my name does not define me in any way. It is simply a label used to distinguish me from everyone else. To think, if I put as much energy into my life as I did in hating my name and fighting against it, I could have accomplished so much more.