Day Twelve: Names

Where does your name come from? What prompted your parents to give you that name? What does it mean to you? Are you happy with your name, or have you always wished that your parents had chosen a different one? Who are you inside, behind the name?

The name Suzanne means lily, a flower. It is of French origin. I love the name Lily. I grew up never really being impressed with my two-names-in-one name. I didn’t have a middle name. No one ever believed me, preferring to think that it was something so awful that I was just too embarrassed to admit what it was. Mama didn’t think that I needed a middle name. Her reasoning was that, once I got married, I’d have a middle name then. Ok. I see her point, but in practice, I didn’t like it at all.

There were two important women (aside from his mother) in my daddy’s life. They were his paternal grandmother, Annie, and her sister, Susie. It was after these two women that I was named. Daddy wanted my name to be Susie Annie. Mama stepped in on that one.

My daddy loved those two women, his Big Mama and his aunt. I never knew them, but I love them because he loved them, and we – he and I – are here today because of Annie, Big Mama. I am happy to have their names for my own, my two-names-in-one.

12. I am thankful for Big Mama stepping in and being there for my daddy when his own parents couldn’t be. I am thankful for the love of a grandma expressed by a grandson in the naming of his firstborn. I am thankful to be Suzanne. I think that I would even be happy to be Susie Annie. :)


One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are