Records and Names

That silly little story about one Amishman's creative use of the buggy whip garnered 547 hits on my blog on the day my nephew Hans linked to it on Facebook. That's a personal record. Hint: make friends with Hans, and tickle his funny bone if you're seeking to claim that 15 minutes of fame we're always hearing about and feeling entitled to.

One of the nicest bits of fallout from that flurry of blog activity was getting acquainted with Sherry Gore, author and magazine publisher from Pinecraft, FL. We have friends in common, it turns out, and her bishop's wife, Ruth, grew up in our church. She was best friends with my sister Clara. They made up one of the three sister-friend pairs between our family and Fred and Mary Nisly's: Martha and Lois, Esther and Dorcas, and Ruth and Clara. (Just noticed--all Bible names except for Clara, who was the namesake of my grandmother Miller.)

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Family name patterns (or the lack thereof) are fascinating. I keep trying to discern motives or patterns or whatever. That's probably a bit obsessive of me, but it's cheap entertainment.

In the Nisly family, the other names were Mark, Mary Jane, Miriam, and Maynard, the oldest. I wonder if there was an epiphany after the firstborn had been named, and a resolve to be more Biblical thereafter. But maybe it just happened that way.

What about the family with six boys--Joshua, Jeffrey, Matthew, Jacob, Michael Jon, and Jordan? Was the plan at the beginning to stick with J's, then a reconsideration after Matthew seemed like a good choice? Maybe Michael Jon was named to keep Matthew from feeling singled out. Of course, it might have been much more random than that. I'm told that "Mom" had innocently suggested Michael Jordan at one point, but when her more knowledgeable older children howled with laughter in recognition of someone they knew whom she did not, "Jon" was substituted for "Jordan." The next baby boy got the leftover half of the first proposal.

I can still recite the amazing achievement of Melvin and Alma, who had a whole family of children whose initials were MMM: (I wonder how they marked their underwear.) Melvin Merle, Michael Morgan, Maynard Milton, and Myrna Marlene.

Did the Beachy Amish parents of James Dean and Lisa Marie know about their entertainment-industry counterparts?

People would no doubt have trouble finding a pattern in our name choices, for that matter. One Old Testament prophet (Joel), one Irish name echoed in a Western movie title featuring a star by the same name (Shane), and one last-name-of-a-president (Grant). Their middle names are David, Michael, and Nathan--all Bible names. (Whew! Finally a pattern.) The only intentional pattern was to have first names that are simple to understand, pronounce, and spell. With a last name like ours, that seemed prudent. I suppose we could have been a bit more creative, as some apparently love to be, and spelled the names Jowell, Shayne, and Grhant, which would, of course, have been as ridiculous and ostentatious as it looks.

Still, our children's names are reasonable, given who we are and what we value. Joel is a good sturdy name--not over-used, and carrying echoes of Hiromi's devotion to ferreting out the intricacies of Biblical history and languages. It has Hebrew origins, as does my name, Miriam, the Hebrew form of Mary in Greek and Maria in Latin.

Shane is the Irish form of John, the middle name Hiromi chose for himself when he became an American citizen. The name choice sounds a little less pious from here on. Hiromi chose John for himself because of John Wayne, a Western movie star he admired. And he also liked the movie "Shane," and can still quote the ending line, spoken by a little boy calling out to a cowboy riding off into the sunset: "Come back, Shane." I had a college classmate named Shane. All I really remember about him was that he was over seven feet tall and did not play basketball. "Shane" was the first name Hiromi and I thought of that we could both agree on--again, not over-used among our circle of friends, and with a connection to his father's name.

Grant's birth occurred while we were in the process of transitioning to a different phase of our purchase agreement on our three-acre home site west of Partridge. We went from land contract to mortgage, at which point we briefly were in possession of the title of the property and found that it had passed into private hands when it was purchased from Ulysses S. Grant, president of the United States. I read over the title shortly before Grant was born and looked up at Hiromi: "Grant. How would you like that for a first name?" He agreed--a great relief after the many suggestions of mine he had shot down in previous naming discussions. (Veto power in evidence; initiative, not so much, at those times--sparing me from the veto role, at least.)

Middle names? David, after my dad, because Joel was the first grandson. Michael, because "Andrew" would have had too many "N's" when paired with Shane. Nathan because it sounded OK and sort of went with Joel's OT prophet name.

This community now has a younger Joel, Shane, and Grant. I'm pleased that the names are still not overused, but at least three sets of parents have approved of one of our choices and used it for their own child, and that feels OK.