G is for Gerardine

G is for Gerardine (or what’s in a name?)

Today I joined a meme (had to look it up…it’s an idea or anything really that repeats itself usually through imitation). So the meme I joined was/is a blog meme asking participants to write a blog post using the alphabet as a prompt.  And this week’s letter is G…well G is for Gerardine of course! That’s GeraRdine, two Rs NO L. I have spent most of my life telling people how to spell my name; that no, I didn’t misspell my own name  on the form; and asking people to take the L out when they insist that it should be inserted into my name.   You would be amazed at how many people try to correct the spelling of my name. 

My family is Catholic and we believe that the Heaven is filled with saints who pray for us each day.  My mother had a number of miscarriages and began to ask St Gerard to pray for her and her unborn babies.  St Gerard was a mystic and credited with saving the life of a woman in labor through prayer (well, actually credited with praying and God saved the life). Thus he became the patron of saint pregnant women. 

Three out of four of my Mom’s children have some form of Gerard in our name (Gerard, James Gerard, and me, Gerardine).  My oldest brother got away with John.  My name is pronounced JEr-a-deen) but most people call me Ger.

 In another post on this site I write about how comforting the familiar is to each of us and how it takes one from the outside looking in to get us to question the familiar. Some times that questioning has merit and sometime it can and should be dismissed.  It wasn’t until I was a teenager did someone feel the need to point out to me how odd it was that my brother and I had the same name…no we didn’t! My name is Gerardine and his name is Gerard…oh, yeah ok, so it’s somewhat the same. We were and are two very different people with two different, albeit similar names.  Funny how I never really thought about having the “same” name as one of brothers until someone told me to think of it that way.

Ah Juliet, What is in a name?  According to a Kabala website my name  means brave spear . Seriously? What the heck does that mean?  If you Google Gerardine, I pop up, as does a CEO of an electric company, an award winning film maker, a chemist, and Google also reveals that Gerardine is the name of a designer of shoes, (but unfortunately, in my humble opinion, not really great shoes). But not too many other Gerardines come up in the search.  So this brave spear is an odd name or rather a rare name…yes, I prefer rare, but I guess I didn’t need Google to tell me that.

Names do have a lot of meaning. When I got married it was hard for me to change my last name…I am Italian-American and my husband is Irish/German-American with a German last name. I didn’t want to give up my last name which expressed my family’s heritage. We compromised (something that we continue to do!). While I don’t hyphenate my name I do use my maiden name for my work but my legal name is Gerardine Luongo Ranft .

About 10 years ago I was at a party and was introduced to a woman whose name was Marcia  A. (full last name not included for privacy).  She told the group she was introduced to that this was her first night out with her “real” name… what did that mean?  She explained that she was adopted and estranged from her adopted parents.  She had learned that her birth mother was Jewish. In order to create her own identity she needed to create a new name for herself…first and last. She didn’t take the last name of her birth mother because, as she explained it, she didn’t really feel that much of a connection to her but she did want a name that acknowledged she was of Jewish heritage. So she named herself Marcia A. The name was completely different from the name she had for more than 35 years. Marcia believed that she needed to reject the name given to her by her adopted parents; she needed  to create a her own name as a way of establishing her own identity. But who was she for 35 years?  I often wondered if she felt connected to her name immediately or did she have to grow into it?

Malcolm X changed his name from Malcolm Little to distance himself from the last name that was imposed on his family by his slave ancestor’s owners. After he made the Hajj to Mecca he took on the name of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.  He too felt that a name could define a man and it was so important that his name reflect his own identity and not one imposed upon him by white supremacists.

Although no longer as common as it once was, we have all heard of celebrities who changed their name to be more marketable.   

Our name is one of the first things we learn to read and write. As children we put it on all our belongings…our backpacks, our books, etc.  At one time or another we have all worn the HELLO! My Name is…label.

At some point I sort of gave up fighting for the two R’s and No L and let people call me Gerry.  People have spelled Gerry with all sorts of variations and since I don’t consider it my REAL name I never cared how it was spelled (although I spell it Gerry).  I do prefer to be called Ger or Gerardine, the latter is what my husband calls me. What is important is knowing that the people who are most important to me call me by my name…as does God.

Yes I do believe God calls me Ger and calls me often.

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine Isaiah 43:1

God knows me and calls me by name .  And that is the importance of a name.  So G is for Gerardine and this Gerardine prays that I have the clarity to know when God calls me and the strength to say yes. 

Isaiah 43:7  Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”