A Rose By Any Other Name

So, what’s in a name?

Lori Leigh Holliday. For the most part, I like my name. I like the alliteration of all of the L’s. Growing up with “Holliday” as a last name was a little bit tough but it didn’t take long for the mockers to realize that saying “Lori Christmas” or “Lori Valentine’s Day” really just wasn’t that funny. I like the spelling of my middle name because it’s weird. A plain name with a weird spelling – mom said it’s a tribute to Janet Leigh of Psycho fame. “Lori” is okay. Nothing great like if it had been Loreal or Laurel…but just regular Lori.

Pretty funny when you consider that as she was going in to the hospital mom said my name was going to be Amy Jo, but coming out it was Lori Leigh. I think I would have liked Amy Jo, too.

My brother’s name – Matthew Russell Holliday – is a great name. I like it. It just sounds like a western name, paying tribute to his Montana birthplace.

Mom and Dad’s names are fun – Alice Ann and Ronnie Glenn. Mom has said she’s never really liked her name, but I think it’s cute and old fashioned. And while she might be “Alice” to those who know her in Montana and Colorado, she is, without a doubt, “Alice Ann” to those in the great state of Texas. Dad’s name is not Ronald. He is Ronnie. On his birth certificate it says “Ronnie”. Just like his sister’s says “Peggy” and not Margaret. I guess that’s what his parents – Willie Doyce and Bessie Mae – liked.

Willie Doyce and Bessie Mae. Yikes.

Whenever anyone pokes fun or remarks at his name actually being “Ronnie”, Dad comes back with this great little monologue that I’ve heard a hundred times, but it makes me laugh every time. It goes like this…

Wellllllllll, if your name is Jerusha Emaline and you are called Roo-she, and you marry Erie Thomas and he is called Ee-yer, and your name is Martha Selia Celina and you are called Lean-er, and you marry Daniel Polk who is called Poke - and they have Bessie Mae and Willie Doyce - their children’s' names of Peggy and Ronnie don't sound quite so peculiar do they?

Ronnie then usually ends this with what is perhaps his funniest line of all time, and what will surely be the subtitle to the book he's been authoring for over 30 years, The 10 Damndest People I've Ever Known, "My tribe, my tribe..."...