What's In A Name?
(Yeah, this is navel-gazing. I'm amazingly competent at cat-vacuuming when I have bigger issues to contend with. Lemme work through this so I can go slounge.)
Contemplating my insistence on my moniker, I found myself wondering why I am so vehement about the matter. What is the difference if someone calls me juli or jules or julie?
It comes down to identity, I think. People build their sense of identity on various things. One person may have as his bedrock the fact that he is a male. Another might build her world around the fact that she has a large family. Self-identity comes from a lot of different sources, but I think that everyone has a few core things that provide the structure for everything else, and that those core things vary (as so many things do) from person to person.
So, why is my name a core component for me? Specifically, why my first name? I have no attachment to my last name beyond the fact that it's been mine for nigh on 30 years. So, why my first name? What's in a name? It is neither hand nor foot.... Right.
Let's see... I was Julie until I turned 10 or so, I think. Even then, I hated silly nicknames like 'Julie Boolie' and 'Jules'. 'Round about 6th grade, I dropped the 'e' out of the name, and became 'Juli'. (Some people still haven't picked up on the original shift.) When I was 17, I shifted over to 'Juliana', because I did finally feel as if my name suited me. I liked the length and the slight edge of formality. The shift didn't really catch on until I went to college a year later, but it was still there.
In my personal history, juliana is someone who has managed to fuck up royally and still come out of it alive. She's grown a tremendous amount, and has become comfortable in her own skin.
'Juli' or 'Julie' , especially in mouths of acquaintances and strangers, is like wearing an old and impossibly dated outfit. It doesn't fit right, it doesn't flatter, and it feels like a sore thumb. The Juli that I was was a very lonely, very insecure child. Julie was even worse. ('Juli' in the mouth of my family feels like wearing my at-home sweats - comfortable and familiar.)
I have a tendency to abandon past history. Sometimes it takes me longer (Alaska and my father, for instance), but I always end up burying it and moving on and not wanting much more to do with it. It's harder when it's your name, I guess.
Oh, and speaking of past history? Old boyfriends keep popping up. They need to disappear, damnitall.
(Also, if anyone reading is panicking about calling me 'Juli', please don't. My last two posts to the contrary, it's really not that big of a deal. Unless you've just met me in any form and call me Julie. Then we need to talk.)
Contemplating my insistence on my moniker, I found myself wondering why I am so vehement about the matter. What is the difference if someone calls me juli or jules or julie?
It comes down to identity, I think. People build their sense of identity on various things. One person may have as his bedrock the fact that he is a male. Another might build her world around the fact that she has a large family. Self-identity comes from a lot of different sources, but I think that everyone has a few core things that provide the structure for everything else, and that those core things vary (as so many things do) from person to person.
So, why is my name a core component for me? Specifically, why my first name? I have no attachment to my last name beyond the fact that it's been mine for nigh on 30 years. So, why my first name? What's in a name? It is neither hand nor foot.... Right.
Let's see... I was Julie until I turned 10 or so, I think. Even then, I hated silly nicknames like 'Julie Boolie' and 'Jules'. 'Round about 6th grade, I dropped the 'e' out of the name, and became 'Juli'. (Some people still haven't picked up on the original shift.) When I was 17, I shifted over to 'Juliana', because I did finally feel as if my name suited me. I liked the length and the slight edge of formality. The shift didn't really catch on until I went to college a year later, but it was still there.
In my personal history, juliana is someone who has managed to fuck up royally and still come out of it alive. She's grown a tremendous amount, and has become comfortable in her own skin.
'Juli' or 'Julie' , especially in mouths of acquaintances and strangers, is like wearing an old and impossibly dated outfit. It doesn't fit right, it doesn't flatter, and it feels like a sore thumb. The Juli that I was was a very lonely, very insecure child. Julie was even worse. ('Juli' in the mouth of my family feels like wearing my at-home sweats - comfortable and familiar.)
I have a tendency to abandon past history. Sometimes it takes me longer (Alaska and my father, for instance), but I always end up burying it and moving on and not wanting much more to do with it. It's harder when it's your name, I guess.
Oh, and speaking of past history? Old boyfriends keep popping up. They need to disappear, damnitall.
(Also, if anyone reading is panicking about calling me 'Juli', please don't. My last two posts to the contrary, it's really not that big of a deal. Unless you've just met me in any form and call me Julie. Then we need to talk.)