Letter a Week: E is for Eileen!
Okay, this one was an easy one. The topic, though, will not be about all things Eileen (as that's the purpose of my entire blog), but specifically about my name.
I came very close to being named "Elaine", which is odd, because so many people call me that, anyway. Oh, it's amusing. I've been called "Elaine", "Ellen", "Irene" (even people reading my name will say that - I don't get it), or, even better, "Amy". (Eileen, Amy... sure - they sound exactly the same!) Anyway, my mother worked with a woman named Elaine whom she didn't like very much, so I became Eileen.
When I was younger, there were lots of other names that I would have preferred. After all, all the cool girls had names that ended with "a" or "y" (or "i", since it was the Valley in the '80s). There was Serrina, Andrea, Jessica, Becca, Erica, Samantha, Claudia... you get the picture. And there was Kathy, Emily, Jenni, Staycee, Charlie, Tiffany, Lani, Valerie... I could go on for days.
And then Dexy's Midnight Runners had their big hit.
You know which song I mean. And it's probably going to get stuck in your head for the rest of the day.
It wasn't until years later that I fully embraced the song, and took great pleasure in the fact that the song had my name in it. After all, one of the best lines that could ever be said about someone is in that song: "At this moment, you mean everything". How can you possibly not believe it when you hear it in the song (and have been reminded via serenading multiple times a month since you were 7) several times? No wonder I have a big head!
So, that's the story of my name. I was spared being named after a chemical (my poor sister has that misfortune) and didn't get named after a coworker that my mother didn't like. Which, honestly, is just as well. I had plenty of time to rebel against and ultimately adjust to "Come On, Eileen" before adolescence and adulthood.
Could you imagine my hell if I shared a name with a Seinfeld character?
Comments
every time you post, i get that song stuck in my head...
anyway, named after a chemical? now i need to know what your sister's name is. hehe.
My parents named my sister Ethylene. I swear - that's her name! I told my husband that if we have a girl, we ought to name her Polly Ethylene and tell her she was partially named after her aunt.
I wouldn't really do that to my child, though. I think it's bad enough my own parents did that to my sister!
so, does your sister go by ethyl? or does she go by the whole thing?
No, no - she goes by Ethylene. I think going by Ethyl would be a bit much.
In all honesty, if I thought I had it bad with people messing up my name, it's nothing compared to the torture my sister had to endure. And you can only imagine how much people expected her to do well in things like, oh, science and math because of a name like that.
BTW, the first molecular structure I learned to diagram wasn't water (H2O) like most kids. No, no. I learned to diagram C2H4 first, with the double bond and everything. I can't tell you why a double bond is necessary or even when to use it, but I knew that it was part of this molecule and I knew how to do it.
And, yes, you've guessed it: C2H4 is the molecular composition of Ethylene!
[sigh] My parents are nerds. There's absolutely no denying it.
at least her name's unique... gotta give your parents that...
out of curiosity, why DID your parents name her ethylene?
Well, my parents are both nerds. My mom was a chemistry major; my dad majored in Chemical Engineering. They met in Organic Chemistry. And, for some odd reason, after flipping through one of her textbooks, my mom decided that she liked the name Ethylene, and that if she ever had a little girl, that was what she would be named.
I really did dodge a bullet, you know. I asked my mom about my name after my own son was born, and she said that I was very close to having the middle name "Maldehyde." Yes, as in for-maldehyde. "It's a preservative," she said, cheerfully.
Eileen Maldehyde. [shudders] Could you imagine? I'd hate to know what my parents would have been like if they took recreational drugs.