Hi Mairead ("Helen") and Deborah,

It's true what you say here about names being informed by love,
and that the gravitational pull is toward the ordinary. Here
among the Navajos there are a number of families whose last names
are "Jim" or "Charley." A Navajo man would come into the trading
post to sell wool or buy flour, and the posts, which extended credit
(at high rates of interest), would keep long running accounts,
so the trader would say, "ok, your family is Jim, yours is
Charley," and so they are since. I always think though that
how much trouble a person gives me over the spelling of my
name, the number of sighs, the shaking of the head, the obdurate
insistence on my saying S as in Sam and so on through the letters
followed by a "huh, what was that again? can you start over?"
is sort of an indicator of how locked down the person is
in his or her assumptions, the hidebound ordinary. On the other
hand I can immediately recognize a telemarketer by what he or
she does to my name. And perhaps we should get our students in
the same classroom, I have had several named, for the same
sort of serious culture reasons, Jesus. Just imagine!

Best,

Rebecca

Rebecca Seiferle (sigh fur lee, or sigh full in the German)
sigh sigh
www.thedrunkenboat.com




-------Original Message-------
From: Mairead Byrne <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 06/13/03 08:13 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Names for the Birthday Boy

>
> Deborah, I also started my classes in the spring with a class on namesand naming.  I used Patrick Kavanagh's "Shancoduff" and darling Walt's
"Crossing Brooklyn Ferry."  One of the best stories was told by a
student called Nadav whose parents, for valid cultural reasons, wanted
to call him Satan.  In my own case, my parents wanted to call me Helen
but considered that Helen Byrne (Hell-in-Burn / Burn-in-Hell)wouldn't be
the thing.  So instead I get to be called Myriad, Mandarin, Maraud, etc
by telemarketers.
One of the most interesting things about names, besides how they are
informed by love, is how they always hark towards familiarity (like all
language and ideas, I suppose).  So if your name is slightly out of the
ordinary, the gravitational pull will be towards ordinary.  We
ordinarize things rather than extraordinize them, generally.  Maybe
poets, or anyone
who slows down enough to look, wonder, and appreciate,
introduce a necessary friction, as Shelley said in much more grandiose
terms.
"Helen"

Mair.ad Byrne
Assistant Professor of English
Rhode Island School of Design
Providence, RI 02903
www.wildhoneypress.com
www.maireadbyrne.blogspot.com
>>> [log in to unmask] 06/13/03 06:20 AM >>>
Re: Gobnait. I have to retract my former comment about not getting a new
name beyond confirmation. When I began studying Irish, going to
immersion
weekends in NY through an organization called Dalta. na Gaeilge about
six
years ago, I was given the name Gobnait. She was a beekeeper from
Ballyvourney by way of the Aran Islands and as the legends go saved the
bally from infestations of bees and/or used them to keep away invaders.
I
had known the origin of Deborah from Hebrew and had learned that in the
1800s, though a biblical name was not given to girl babies because it
was
considered too strong a name for a girl. A little more rambling--once
when I
was teaching a social work course in human diversity at Rutgers-Newark,
expecting 20 students, 37 arrived from just about every county you could
think of. One of the things I did was to ask them to introduce
themselves
and let the class know if there was a story about their name or their
naming.  It was amazing and the bonding in the class was incredible.

Am enjoying the translations. Bending the languages, aiming them and
just
playing around.


Deborah Humphreys
Newark, NJ


www.nunwhizdom.com

www.mp3.com/nunwizdom

-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Mairead Byrne
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2003 11:26 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Birthday Boy


Where does the Gobnait come from, Deborah?  These translations, Alison,
Arni, yourself, are wild.
Got to saddle my horse quick.
Mairead

Mair.ad Byrne
Assistant Professor of English
Rhode Island School of Design
Providence, RI 02903
www.wildhoneypress.com
www.maireadbyrne.blogspot.com
>>> [log in to unmask] 06/12/03 21:46 PM >>>
My birthday was Tuesday and Kenneth's post reminded me of the story of
how I
got the name Deborah or didn't.  My parents thought that Deborah was not
a
common name (just a bit ahead of Debbie Reynold). But I am told that in
1950
Deborah was not a "saint's name" so the priest said how about Mary
Deborah,
but my father did the then equivalent of whatever and the story goes
that my
baptismal name was Mary.  Who knows? But I do remember the horror of my
mother, a convert from Garrison Keilor land, when I told her I wanted
the
name Agnes for confirmation. In those days confirmation was not really a
coming of age in the faith community thing, but when the bishop happened
to
go through the county--a week after our First Communion.
And last on this little journey down memory lane, by time I entered the
convent, they had stopped the custom of giving out new names.  Actually
I
like the name Deborah.

Well happy birthday to Mark and other Geminis.

from Newark (NJ)

-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Kenneth Wolman
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2003 9:24 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Birthday Boy


At 04:29 PM 6/12/2003 -0700, you wrote:
>Too much reading O'Casey at an early age.
>
>I was sometimes called Marcus Aurelius. Or Moishe Yizzik. We had a lot
of
>linguistic choices.
>
>Mark

Happy birthday, Mark!

When I was born it seemed to be a Jewish unofficial practice to do a
form
of mental nose-straightening.  By which I mean you gave you kid the most
trayfe name imaginable so he could "pass."  I am Kenneth Theodore
Wolman.  I was named for my father's father, Kalman.  Kalman was my
"inside" name.  Theodore came not from any Greek branch of the
mishpocheh
but from Tova, my grandmother.  There I was: Celtic, Greek, and the only
time my father used his given name--Jacob--was when it was carved on his
headstone.  We gave the name straight-up to my firstborn.

This wasn't just done among Jews.  I knew a guy in college named Jordan
Sibilski.  He went to court and legally changed his last name to Bell.
I
gather it happened among Italians of a certain age as well.

I don't like counting birthdays anymore.  The last birthday I enjoyed
was
when I hit 40 because my wife threw a surprise party for me and I was
actually surprised.

I'm 59.  Even considering the alternative to turning 60 next
February...well, here's where I start humming a few bars from "September
Song":-).

Ken

-----------------------------
Kenneth Wolman  http://www.kenwolman.com
http://kenwolman.blogspot.com
Lord, steel us against the expectation of disappointment and our belief
in
the certainty of heartbreak....
>