What’s in a name? Shakespeare’s Juliet says “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." According to Andre Boezaart, “its thorns would hurt as much.”

A lot has been written about names. Articles and books on the most popular names, what to name your baby, what your name means, how your name affects your personality, how it relates to numerology, etc. can be found in every bookstore and magazine stand, not to mention how much information can be found online. You can get a complete analysis of your personality based on nothing more than the number of letters in your name. I’m not sure about the numerology part. That seems kind of random to me.

However, I know firsthand that having an unusual name can affect many aspects of your personality and the decisions you make in your life. I’m always reminded of the Johnny Cash song “A Boy Named Sue.” It’s a good thing I’ve never been prone to self-pity. Of course if I had shown any signs of that particular weakness, my mother would have kicked me in the backside and told me to straighten myself out or she’d whack me with the back of her nasty boar bristle hairbrush and really give me something to cry about.

She was right, of course, there were certainly more profoundly terrible things that could happen to you besides getting teased about having a goofy name. But at age 9, from my perspective, life had already dealt me a pretty crappy hand. I lived in a single-parent household where my mother was the “Super” of the building. All my friends had two parents. Where was my father? Didn’t he love us? I was so short and skinny that my mother was investigated by Social Services to make sure she was actually feeding me. I wore glasses because I was near-sighted, had a face full of freckles and long red hair which my mother insisted on braiding. I looked like a living Pippi Longstocking. And worst of all, my hyper-activity and left-handedness were sure signs of demonic possession to our superstitious old-world eastern European immigrant neighbors. The last thing I needed was a weird name like Ilonka. My mother was a Danube Swabian (ethnic German living in Hungary) and Ilonka is a Hungarian form of Helen. But to me, it was just another thing to make me an easy target for bullies. I had a ponderous list of teasing nicknames (four-eyes, lefty, pooh-pooh head, pee-pee face, freckles, freckle-face, freckle freak, carrot-top, red-top, tomato head, skinny bones, shrimpy, shorty, squirt, and others I’m not even going to mention here. In my school full of Marys, Cathys, Lindas, and Cindys, I was Ilonka (Ee-lon-kaw) called Lunk-head or Lunka-lunk... very pretty don't ya think?

My name so embarrassed me, I couldn’t even say it out loud. I would cringe every time I heard it. As soon as I was able, I began calling myself Helen and that was that. Of course my name wasn’t the only thing I found offensive about myself. I hated my glasses and my freckles and most of all my damned red hair. I didn’t want anything about me to be different or unusual. I wanted to be invisible.

But soon everything would change. I would become an orphan. There would be hippies and flower children and psychedelic colors. Students would rise up on college campuses to protest for peace. Public figures would be assassinated. Being different or unusual would become far out and grovey. Nothing would ever be the same again.

So having said all this, one would think I’d spare my own children from having to deal with the drama-trauma of having names that are different. Not me! Never! No such luck! As much as I wanted to be invisible, my life was never “Vanilla” flavored. It’s always been “Rocky Road” for me.

Now I have two daughters, both with somewhat unusual names, Sunshine and Lone Star. Of course in their world, having an unconventional name is very different from my day.

When Sunny (Sunshine Came Softly - dad was a Donovan freak) was born, she was nothing less than a miracle. I was told I couldn’t have biological children but low and behold here was this miracle child. She was perfect. She was beautiful. She was blonde like her father and she was the sunshine of my life, hence her name. She was also a whaling banshee, without doubt the most fussy baby I’ve ever seen. There was no way this child was ever going to be ignored. She had needs, she had wants, and if these weren’t fulfilled, somebody was going to hear about it. Twenty years later, nothing has changed. She’s intelligent, strong willed, and independent all of which I’m very proud of. However, she’s also arrogant, selfish and much too attractive for her own good. Her good looks have been both a blessing and a curse to her. Her beauty often lets her get away with some of the most demanding and disagreeable behavior. She’s under the impression she deserves things just because she’s here. Someone once suggested to me that she might be an Indigo child. Indigo child my foot. She’s just spoiled and if my mother were still alive, she would have put a quick end to that behavior a long time ago. But mom isn’t here and I suck at discipline. According to her biological father, she’s a bad seed if ever there was one. What a stupid thing to say. I had to laugh when he said that because anyone looking could see she’s just like he is. The apple didn’t fall very far from the tree in this case. But we haven’t seen him in a long time, and we don’t really miss him either.

Star, named after the Susan Hayward character in the movie “The Honey Pot” came along five years later, and is the most loving child you could ever imagine. She’s my angel, as sensitive as her sister is callous. We are best friends and she actually thinks I’m cool. She’s just as creative, strong willed and independent as her sister, but not as self-centered or self-absorbed. Unlike the issues I had with my name, both my girls love their names and like being set apart from the sea of Jessicas, Kaylas, Brittanys and Briannas in their schools.

I’m not sure if the girls’ names have had any influence on their personalities or not. I know they both seem have a little bit of an attitude about having names that are different, but to me, they would be exactly the same two beautiful young women no matter what their names.