Freewrite4 LEit

I’m pretty sure that my name was founded in my parents’ workplace at Stanford hospital. I remember them telling me that they couldn’t make up their minds about what to name me. It seems to me that about half of the parents that find themselves about to have a child have already chosen a name long ago and were going to stick with it because it was just too great. Then there’s the other half of those parents that are going to have a baby within the year and can’t seem to think of a good name, a fitting name. That’s an interesting concept, because if you go this route of fitting a name to an unborn child, how do you do it? Do you guess at the nature of the child and name accordingly? Do you have the mother stumble around and guess with psychic intuition? It seems that I was named by a combination of these two and I am glad of it. This makes me feel like they named me, not found a name, and a child to match.
In kindergarten, I was in a small class of about 50 students in the whole of kindergarten. It was quite easy to learn everyone’s names and remember them. Each face had a name, and just one name at that! A girl I knew was Danielle, just Danielle. And another was called Kathryn. No big deal. Things were easy to remember and there was only one of each name. There was no need for nicknames. As time went on, people got nicknamed and suddenly sprouted last names to differentiate between people in our ever-growing class. I never really gained a nickname. However, one sprouted up and stuck quite well, but was never widely used. Elmo. It was exclusive to girls who knew me really well. I’m not quite sure why only girls called me by that name. I wait, I remember. Once a guy tried to call me that and it sounded weird and everybody looked at him funny. Hah. I’m not sure why that name cropped up. maybe it’s because of my sometimes poofy hair that looks like Elmo from sesame street’s head. I’m happy about the way it stuck. Nobody called me that, except for those brave few girls who were close to me.

I'm curious about the story you set me up to learn, yet never tell. That is, how your naming was a combination of random and meaningful. And how it came out of your parents' workplace?

It IS interesting how some names are prone to morphing and others not. Yes, I think the Elmo is the hair and, of course, your sweet personality.

Interesting. So what does Stanford Hospital have to do anything? What were your parents' jobs?

Ditto on the Elmo though-definitely the hair, not so sure about this supposed "Sweet Personality" thing, though...

I like the idea behind the hospital part, but I'm still a little confused. But i understand. I think. And I'm having so much trouble, even my comments about it aren't making sense anymore. But i liked it. It gave good insight into something about having a name that i never though about.

I especially liked the ending of this piece. I can totally see calling you Elmo!

The Elmo bit was quite amusing.

I'm also a little confused about the hospital and the name choosing. I think I have some grasp of the idea behind it, but I'm not certain, too. I do like your analysis of parents fitting names, though. I feel like a lot of us didn't get far enough into the prompt in the time given to define what names are/how they fit to the people to whom they were given.

I love the line about the mother stumbling around with psychic intuition, I've never really thought about how ridiculous finding a "fitting" name is, even though I've helped to do it several times. Also the line about them naming you and not matching you to your name was really nicely put.
And I can see people calling you elmo... It's nice how it was almost a mark of how close you were.

I think it is pretty cool that your parents named you in such a way. I am pretty sure my mother and father had my name planned out months before I was born and that was the name they decided to use. It is for more interesting to have such a name origin. I am confused about the process exactly but I have a bit of an intuition as to what happened.