The Name Game

I’ve been thinking a lot about names lately. Like, why are some of us named Mildred and some of us Brandi? No offense to the Agathas and Ediths of the world, but why would your parents give you an ugly old-fashioned name when there are much, much cuter ones that would look fantastic on a birth certificate or crib headboard? Like Jenni and Jessi and Kathi and Lyndi and Lori and Kelli and Kristi and Wendi and Merri? You know, names that signify fun, bubbly, and carefree. They make the tongue literally jump for joy, because it doesn’t have to gag itself on saliva (gross!) pronouncing something harsh or phlegmy. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that if your name ends with an “i” or an “ie,” you’re pretty much guaranteed a great life.

At school, I always noticed how girls with cute names tended to have the coolest clothes, the most friends, and the highest popularity. (Our homecoming queen was named Shanni, and she went on to be a successful realtor in our area.) I think the Kerris and the Candis of the world will back me up on my theory. I don’t know if there’s anyone named Iiii (pronounced “Eee-eee”), but if there is, she has to be the happiest person on Earth!

Granted, sometimes these girls could be kind of spoiled, even a tad rhymes-with-itchy, probably because they were treated like princesses for their entire childhoods. But it wasn’t hard to imagine why: They clearly meant the world to their moms and dads, who, from the moment Mr. Stork arrived, wanted to spare their daughters the lifelong pain of having a long, embarrassing, hard-to-pronounce name. I remember this popular girl Missi used to go around checking if the less popular girls who wore jeans to school had made sure to straighten out the interior of their front pockets right after putting them on. She’d actually stop them in the hall and carry out an inspection if she suspected them of slacking. If their pockets were still all bunched up (you could tell if they had a hard time slipping their hands into their pockets), they caught some real h-e-double-hockey-sticks (I know firsthand!). Is it normal to care about stuff like that? I suppose, since all the kids acted like Missi was the greatest thing since Madonna! Now imagine if Missi had been named Grizelda instead. She wouldn’t have been nearly the superstar she was.

I know, you’re thinking, “Envious much, Jean?” Well, count me as an honorary member of the Cute-Name Club, because since I was knee-high to a pair of knee-highs, my dad has called me “Jeannie.” But it’s only my nickname, not the name I was born with, and I think that has something to do with the way my life has gone. I’ve been within grasp of the brass ring more than a few times (I almost got a job at Claire’s once, to name just one example!), but I always end up tumbling off the carousel horse. Maybe if I had been baptized a Chrissi or Missi, things would have a lot been different.

To complicate matters further, my middle name didn’t exactly do anything to counteract the plainness of my first name. When I was born, my parents gave me the name Jean Meleanne. Meleanne? An interesting choice, you must be asking. Was that a traditional family name? Were my parents’ best friends named Mel and Leanne? Was it a play on “melons,” their favorite fruit? Or a tribute to their faithful old melamine dinnerware set?

Heck to the capital N capital O! My middle name is not pronounced “Mel-Leanne.” Instead, it’s meant to be the name Melanie. My parents didn’t know for certain how to spell “Melanie,” and this was the closest they could figure. Ah well, they could have done worse—they were just off two letters. That’s not bad for people who only write checks, sweepstakes entry blanks, and Christmas cards. Of course, my parents (they’re named Horvel and Lillian, by the way) could have avoided the mistake by consulting a baby-name book or asking one of the nurses in the obstetrics ward, but who am I to judge? Parents have so much on their plate as it is, a daughter’s misspelled middle name amounts to a piece of spit-out gristle! I know because my mom told me this during one of our screaming matches. I was plenty devastated at the time (I was 17), but through the years I eventually arrived at her hard-won wisdom. Same with my old selfish assumption that my dad was out getting crocked at the supper club every night—truth be told, he owned a roofing company, and he had to wine and dine his clients to get business. Recognizing your parents’ sacrifices is part of the maturing process.

Long story short, my parents never went back and changed the birth certificate, and I can’t afford the court fees to change it anyhow, so I’ve learned to embrace my middle name for the charmingly unique thing it is!

In fact, one day back in the eighth grade, I signed my homework assignments “Mel” instead of my regular old “Jean” because I thought it sounded spunky in a tomboyish way. For a few class periods, none of my teachers noticed. But then in pre-algebra class we took a pop quiz, and the teacher happened to look down at our collected papers and noticed that I’d written in a different name, and he asked me about it in front of everyone. I was forced to explain I was trying out a new nickname, and everybody snickered like it was the weirdest thing they ever heard. “Why do you want people to call you the same name as Alice’s boss?” one girl asked with a sneer (her name was Wendi). So then for the rest of the week people started calling me “Mel,” then “Mel’s Diner,” then “Kiss mah grits, Mel!” By the end of the second week it had developed into “Vic Tayback,” and that one pretty much stuck until the end of the school year.

Actually, now that I think about it, even if I did have a first name that ended in “i” or a properly spelled middle name, it’s likely none of it would have made my last name sound any better. I’ve been a Teasdale for so long, I sometimes forget how much I wanted to forget my maiden name. Of course, my dad felt the exact opposite. “There’s nothing wrong with the name of Speidr,” he would tell my brother and me.

That’s right, I started life as Jean Meleanne Speidr. Pronounced just the way you’re thinking. “Your great-grandfather carried it all the way from the little town near the Austrian-Swiss border where he was born,” my father often told us. “He refused to change it, even if it meant far better opportunities for him and his family.” My dad loves our last name. He’s also very proud of his first name, which he said his mother received in a dream while she was pregnant with him. In fact, at one point he had business cards made up that read “The Only Horvel Speidr in the State!” When we were kids, he hung a carved mahogany sign near our front door that read “The Speidrs’ Web.” Well, that took a long time to live down. None of the neighborhood kids ever dared to come over to our house, because it was “filled with Speidrs!” Dad was Daddy Long Legs, and Mom was the Black Widow (not entirely inaccurate!). Me? I was Charlotte A. Cavatica. My brother Kevin didn’t have a nickname. Maybe the kids simply ran out of spider names, but I suspect it was because he was the sole neighborhood supplier of illegal fireworks and trucker stimulants and they couldn’t afford to get on his bad side.

I won’t go so far as to say I married Rick to rid myself of an embarrassing maiden name, but I gotta admit, it sure was a big perk! “Teasdale” is very charming, I think. It gives me visions of a family of happy bunnies enjoying tea in a beautiful sunny green valley. It doesn’t necessarily have to be bunnies, mind you—that’s just what immediately comes to mind. It could be hedgehogs, too.

So while I’m content with being called Jean Meleanne Teasdale, I can’t help dreaming up some new monikers for myself, just for fun. Would I have been more successful were I a Lindsi Windermere Teasdale? Would you talk to me more if I was a Kimberli Piper Teasdale? How about Mallorie Bree? Or Lexi Wylie? Sydnie Chablis? But it may interest you to know that I, like the kitties in the kitty poet guy’s poem that got made into a musical, have given myself a name that only I myself know and will never confess. Sorry, Jeanketeers, but it’s a name that you will never guess. Oh, all right, it’s Marjorie Snugglemittens.