Naming Names

I don't even remember the first time I got to name something. I was 3 when Grandpa gaves us the basset hound, and I named him Snoopy. (My guess is that's the only dog name I knew!)

When I was in 5th or 6th grade, we had a lovely calico cat move in on, I mean with, us. Happens she was extremely pregnant! I named her Lady, but someone else named her Hobie-cat (we were very active with the local sailing club, and a Hobie-cat is a catamaran.) When she had her five kittens, we got to name them too. I named the little calico Honor (it gets involved - if her mama was a lady, that would make her the Honourable Miss - therefore, Honor.) And I'm pretty sure I picked Treasure for the golden tabby. We got to keep those two. We found homes for Hobie and the other three kittens. The other kittens were Scamp (named after the b&w Tramp that Grandma Skold had had), Jack (the grey tabby - one of his eyes opened before the other so he was One-Eyed Jack for a few days), and Patches (a little tabby, a little calico, a little?)

My own lovely tabby came to me, from my boss, with the name of Austin. I changed that to Austen in honor of Jane Austen.

I don't have any children to name, but I've named myself a few times! I worked as a Girl Scout camp counselor for three summers and my camp name was Sonoma - the county I grew up in. It had a nice soft sound to it.

When I started working at the Renaissance Faire, I needed a good English name so I chose Constance Parker. I wanted a first name that was period but not too common, and the last name is the most English of my ancestors' names.

When I joined the Irish, I needed a new name yet again. I chose Neassa (pronounced Nessa) because it was uncommon, because if you saw it written you had a fighting chance of being able to pronounce it (unlike, say, Maeve which is traditionally spelled Medh) and because it has a great story behind it.

There was a widow-woman named Neassa who had a son. She married one of the Irish kings, and when her boy became a man, she convinced her husband it would be a grand thing if he let her son be king for a year. She wanted to be able to say her grandsons were the sons of a king. Well, she got him to agree. And then spent the entire year whispering in the ears of all the nobles, "See what a fine, strong king he makes! See how devoted he is to the task. He wouldn't give up the responsibility of the kingship to any other man." And at the end of the year, the nobles supported her son, and her husband had lost his kingdom. Mother love at its strongest! I can never remember the son's first name, but he was called MacNeassa after her.

Fortunately, I really like Neassa, because most of my Faire friends call me that all the time. That first year in Irish there was another Kristen and another Kris in the guild already, so Marnie decided I should always be called Neassa for clarity's-sake. When I left the Irish and joined the Inn, I kept Neassa and added Parker back to it. We're part-Welsh at the Inn, so a Celtic name is plausible. And while I tried to use Great-Grandma's name for Dickens Fair, I could never, ever hear Hannah-Maria so I'm Neassa there as well. My "sister" answers to Ariadne, so clearly Mama was a romantic.