10 Names You Would Have Named Yourself

Photo Credit: kevinzim via Compfight cc

When I saw this Listicle topic, I was thrilled--I've been obsessed with names & naming for several years now. Since right around the time I got pregnant the first time, unsurprisingly enough. Even before that, when I was a child, I spent a lot of time thinking of names I'd prefer to my extremely common one. Never quite did settle on one & eventually, I was happy enough with my name. I've plumbed the depths of my memories to find the names I would have named myself & listed them for you here:

1. Lisa Marie. Okay, these are actually my first & middle names, but I thought maybe I'd go by both, rather than just Lisa. Unfortunately, the whole Elvis Presley's daughter connection wasn't really something I wanted to emphasize, especially in the mid-90s with her odd marriage to Michael Jackson.
2. Zelda. This was actually the name of my first Cabbage Patch Kid, so I don't know if I would have taken it, it was more just that I always thought names starting with Z were extra cool. For the record, this was before the Legend of Zelda video game came out.
3. Cassiopeia. I've always loved names of constellations & this one is a favourite, as I can always spot it in the sky. Bonus: it shortens nicely to a more common name: Cassie.
4. Kollontai. It's the surname of a Russian revolutionary who was one of the foremost champions of women's rights at the time. Aside from the obscure lefty cred, the name ticks another box of being gender-neutral, which is something I've favoured for names a lot of my life.
5. Linnaea. This Swedish gem I didn't actually discover until 2010, when I was searching for names for what my intuition told me was a daughter. 20-week ultrasound told us baby was a boy & we went back to the drawing board, eventually tracing this girl's name back to it's roots as the scientist who named the flower that Linnaea comes from.
6. Indigo. I favoured this one when I was in my neo-hippy days in my late teens. Never actually used it as a moniker, but I still love the colour.
7. Libelle. I seriously considered this one for my daughter, actually. It's pronounced lee-BELL-uh, the German word for dragonfly. Nobody would have ever pronounced it properly here & it looks a little too much like libel, so we didn't pick it. I did actually use it myself as an online identity sometimes. My screen name for a number of websites & even my original Twitter handle was 'Blaue Libelle' (blue dragonfly).
8. Yseult. Another one that ticks the box of unusual initials, this one also reflects my francophilia. It's pronouced ee-ZEUH, though I bet nobody would ever get it right here in Western Canada. The name comes from the 12th century French legend, Tristan & Iseult. 
9. Corriveau. I know, I know, this is in fact my surname. I thought about going by my last name when I was in high school. My best friend at the time called me that--I think it was the influence of English boarding school culture on us. Well, actually, my friend got lazy & shortened it to 'Corv', & I didn't really stick with it. She still calls me 'Corv' to this day, though.
10. Elsie. This I favoured when I was nine or ten years old. My initials made into a name. A name that sounds like a 97-year-old woman. Too bad I didn't stick with that one. *snort*

Though it is a bit annoying to be one of several Lisas, the fact that it's so common has been an advantage sometimes. As an ESL teacher, virtually nobody had trouble remembering it because the sounds in it are common to most languages in the world. Another bonus: I nearly never get asked how to spell or pronounce it. It's simple, easygoing & it reflects the era I was born into. 

How about you? Did you want to have a different name when you were a kid? Or did you actually change yours? Spill!

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