What’s in a name? (Show & Tell Tuesday)

I’m linking up to day with Andrea at Momfessionals for “Show and Tell Tuesday” and today we’re playing the name game.

When I was a freshman in college, I had a super quirky calculus professor whom, on the first day of class, called roll by shouting out each person’s name and then looking up the meaning of said name in his handy-dandy name meaning book.  Because why wouldn’t a MATH professor keep one of these close by?

Is quirkiness a pre-requisite for college professors?  I had quite the cast of characters that educated me.  There was the sociology professor who told us on the first day of class a detailed story about his drug-addicted wife leaving him after 18 years of marriage – FOR A PIMP, and the political science professor who spoke at such a low volume that you had to be three latte’s in and be leaning in very closely to hear him and stay awake all at the same time UNTIL HE STARTED SCREAMING AND CURSING OUT OF NOWHERE, THAT IS.  And the other political science professor with the glass eye who still managed to always catch me looking at my phone during class…

I digress.

Once I realized my calc professor was also giving us the gift of telling us our name meaning I began shrinking in my chair.  Because I knew what my name meant.  And I was sitting next to boys I had met at our freshman orientation camp who I would have liked to have made a good first impression on since I knew exactly 2 people at TCU when I went there.

“Kelly Ferguson – WARRIOR WOMAN.  Stand up Kelly, let’s see your warrior self!”

Ah, isn’t that lovely?  And such a match for my 5 foot nada frame.  I weighed maybe 100 pounds at the time, too.  So fitting.  This was clearly a life highlight for me.

How was I blessed with such a name?

My parents named me after a street.

The street where they met? One might ask.  No, of course not.  The street they lived off of? Nah, not that either.  Well surely there’s some meaning behind this street? Nope.

Just, one day they were driving down Kelly Avenue and thought, “hey, that’s a nice name”.

And this is how I did not become Julie – which was apparently the other name chosen for me before the Great Street Epiphany of 1985.

Julie means “youthful” – a much preferred meaning to “warrior woman” if you ask me.

Meanings aside, I’m very glad to have been named Kelly.  Because who would I be today had I not been called Kelly Kapowski through much of my elementary school days? That is some character and humor building stuff right there. (Thanks, Mom & Dad!)

If only my hair looked that fab and I could pull off tie-dye disc earrings paired with a neon floral crop top.

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