Julia Elise Marie, what a lovely name. It rolls off the tongue in elegance and grace. Sometimes I repeat it to myself, over and over again in my head, trying to imagine answering to it. Or signing it on letters and credit card receipts in lavish, but dignified, penmanship. The name is unique, beautiful, and stately; what more could someone hope to be known by? But, to my utter dismay, I am not known by it. I came close, though. In those long nine months when my mother spent her time preparing for me and preparing a name by which she would call her precious child for the rest of her life, Julia Elise Marie is the one she decided on.
Julia is my mother's own name, passed down to her from her grandmother. It is a family name, and I would have been the next descendant to proudly possess it. Elise and Marie were my mother's two closest friends, one of whom became my godmother. Julia, Elise, Marie: three very meaningful names which, strung together and spoken as a whole, make a sound that puts me in mind of the luxurious future that I can only dream of one day building for myself, a future of elegance and affluence. How perfect.
Whenever my mother tells the story of my original name, she smiles a sad little smile when she relays just how perfect it was in her mind, too. Though her name is Julia, her nickname has always been Jewel. If I had received the name that she had intended for me, my initials would have been J.E.M., and the thought of Jewel having a little gem of her own made her even more sure that she had chosen the just the right moniker for her baby. But, to my complete disappointment, not to mention my mother's, I am not her little gem. I am not the girl to carry on the family name or to raise my hand in class when the professor calls the most lovely name on the roll. I am not Julia Elise Marie. Nor am I Jasmine or Mae Lee or any of the other distinctive names my mother would have settled for. No, my father wouldn't have that. It's not right for a woman to name her child after herself, he told her. Deciding what, exactly, would be an appropriate name for her daughter became a source of true distress for my mother.
After much time and numerous attempts, finally my mother suggested the one name that she and my father happened to agree on, the name that would stick. Jessica. No, it doesn't really roll of the tongue in the same way, does it? It's not very pretty in writing, either. And it most certainly doesn't conjure up the same images in my head that my intended name does, the images of mansions, of gardens, of a well-off older lady with her long, silver hair pinned back, relaxing in her claw-foot bathtub, reading classy books by the natural light that enormous windows all around allow in as suds sneak over the edge and pool on the marble floor. No, that's certainly not an image associated with Jessica.
The images that readily come to mind when I hear my own name are images of all of the embarrassing moments in class when I have raised my hand three times during roll before the professor called the "right" Jessica. In fact, my name is one of the top five most common names to be dumped on a female child in this country. My name is boring and uninteresting, and, call me egotistical, I've always felt that I deserve more. I am not a common person. I'm different and unique. I have purple hair and thirty piercings; that makes me an individual, right? I have my very own remarkable style and talents and ideas. I'm extraordinary.
Ok, maybe not. Maybe the old saying is true and I am just special and unique like everyone else. If so, my name is unbelievably fitting. I'm Jessica, just like everyone else. It just makes me a little sad sometimes to think that I came so close to being someone else, someone better, at least in name. I came so close to being that elegant old woman in the bathtub. Or, if not, if the name does not make the woman after all and if being Julia Elise Marie would truly not have brought me any closer to being that lady, at least with a name like that it would have seemed a little less far-fetched. I could have been that lady or I could have been the unique and interesting twenty-one year old that I'd love to imagine that I already am today. Possibly. But, if not, with a name like that at least I could pretend.
© jessica huby, 2004
