What’s in a name? I thought this was a fun #Bloganuary prompt from #Wordpress, asking us to write about the meaning and significance of our first name. It made me think, hmm, what about the name some wanted to give for me but were shot down by my mother? To be honest, I have so many names people call me by that Debby is quite a rare one.
About my name, I was formally named Deborah Elaine, but when I was a child, hearing my mother use my full name, alerted me that I was in trouble yet again. She was the only one who ever called me Deborah, and that wasn’t a good thing. Don’t even get me started on growing up and through the school years teachers couldn’t get my name spelled correctly, always assuming I was Debbie instead of Debby. The trend has continued throughout my life with a few exceptions – like best friends and those who know me well all get that my name ends in a ‘y’ not an ‘ie’. But if my paternal orthodox grandmother would have had her way, my name would have been Esther. Just no! And a nod to my mother for sticking to her guns and winning that name war.
I have no idea where the idea of the name Esther came into play, but being that my grandmother was quite religious, Esther was a queen in the bible who was an orphan raised by her uncle Mordechai who was taken to serve Persian King Ahasuerus in his harem. The king fell in love with her above all others and made her his queen. Esther did not love the king and endured six years of rape by him. When she learned that the Prime Minister Haman had made an edict to kill all Jews in the Persian empire, she conspired with her uncle to warn the king. When the king found out, he had Haman killed and made Mordechai the new prime minister. This story has to do with the Jewish holiday, Purim. So how did I end up with the name Deborah?
In the Jewish tradition, babies are named after dead lost loved ones – never named for someone still living. My mother’s mother died when my mother was barely fourteen years old, her name was Dorothy. I was the first born so I should have been named Dorothy, except, my mother was the youngest child among her siblings and two of my aunts had already named their daughters Dorothy. Keeping with the initial ‘D’, I became Deborah. The middle name, Elaine, was a sort of meeting of halfways between my mother and grandmother and Elaine was as close to Esther and as far as my grandmother’s wish got. In the Jewish religion, the Hebrew name of Deborah is D’vorah, which translates into ‘bee’. Deborah was a prophetess in the Book of Judges from the Old Testament. Does that make me a Queen Bee? I’m not sure, but watch out for my stinger. 🙂
Funny enough, the only time I still get called by my formal name is at a doctor’s office – or the like, filling out forms, I become addressed as Deborah. It still gets under my skin as I remember nobody calls me by that name except when my mother was hollering at me. Some things just stick.
Besides the naming of me, I have several nicknames given to me throughout my lifetime – some endearing, some cringe-worthy. I won’t get into all of those or why (family pet names and some not so pet friendly). To my beloved husband I was always Cub or Cubby to him. He came up with the name spontaneously on our third date. I can count on one hand how many times he called me Deb (never Debby) in the twenty-five years we were together. But suffice it to say, names that still linger are dubbed by my two besties – one calls me Nor, the other calls me Booben. Perhaps one day I’ll share where those strange names came from!
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