What’s in a Name?

Virgin

My name is Elizabeth, but I grew up as Lisa (a common name at the time due to the popularity of actress Lisa Gaye). At any rate, some folks spell Elizabeth, "Elisabeth," so I was Lisa . . . and MAN were there a lot of us. In one of my high school English classes there were six Lisa's, and in college, there were even more! Finally I got tired of it. I was tired of being part of a crowd.

I didn't really feel like a Lisa, either. I liked the name all right; it’s a pretty name. But I thought of Lisa's as "sweet" and "good", and at the time I wasn’t particularly interested in either one of those things. I wanted to grow up--not worry so much about other people, be more straight-forward, embrace my edgier self, figure out who I really was (I’m still working on it). So I “changed” my name.

Lover

“I’m Liz,” I said at parties. “I’m going by Liz, now,” I told old friends. And soon I was her. I was Liz. I turned when people said the name; I wrote it on my college papers; I felt it when my lovers whispered it in bed.

For years I’ve been Liz: Liz graduated college; Liz got married; Liz bore children; Liz went to graduate school, got a job, bought a house, paid bills; Liz is going gray. 

Mother

But what happened to Lisa? Where did she go, that little girl, that adolescent, that young woman I once was, for so many years? I still answer to the name; I still look up when I hear someone say “Lisa” in a crowd. And when my aunt and uncle--those living links to the long-ago "me"--call me by that name, it’s sweet. It touches me. I’m still her to them . . . and to myself in that moment. How odd! And even more surprisingly, when I hear my old name coming from the people I love, and they mean me, and something in me answers them--something long-ago and real and deep--I feel a bit sad, maybe regretful even, that I just dumped Lisa off on a street corner somewhere in Ann Arbor and said, “Don’t wait for me.” Didn’t I have some responsibility for her? Shouldn’t I have given her a little warning?

But, well, Liz wasn’t as nice as Lisa, right? Not as thoughtful? She didn't care more about other people than about herself like Lisa did. At least she didn’t want to. Liz wanted to be free: to be a writer, a poet, an artist, a wanderer, a lover, a singer, a seeker, a seer. Liz was trying to leave Lisa behind.

We can’t, though, can we? We can’t leave ourselves behind, not 

Queen

any part of us. We are who we are because of all that we have been. And my parents were smart. They gave me a name that could be a hundred selves--Bess and Betsy, Els and Elspeth, Betty and Beth; Eliza and Ellie, Bet and Tibby, Lisa and Liz. And this is good thing for a restless chameleon like me, somebody who enjoys trying on all the perspectives, writing all the characters, listening to everyone’s stories, leaving nothing out. Being a million shades of me.

I was speaking with an old friend on the phone the other day. He asked me how I was. I said I was doing OK, but I was trying to figure out how to “come out of the closet” so to speak, and be who I really am now that I’m middle-aged.  

He said, “You’ve been trying to do that for 25 years!” We both laughed; because it’s true.

I added, “Well, It’s a really long closet, and I have to try on every outfit from here to the door to figure which me is going to open it!”

“Maybe,” he said, “it would be better if we just came in?” And there was a pause, “But then, we might never get out again.”

I think that’s my fear, actually, that the whole of me--Elizabeth, that girl with a raft of possible selves (with all of their ideas and enthusiasms and fears and perspectives and needs)--might gobble you up, you people I love. Better to keep it short: Liz. Better to make it sweet: Lisa.

The people who love me don’t seem to be buying it, though. These days my closest friends are starting to call me “Lizzie.” I’ve noticed it; they’re calling me by the pet name my mother, and father, and grandparents used for me in that long-ago time when my everyday name was Lisa. I don’t know exactly when “Liz” started morphing to “Lizzie”--I didn’t tell anyone to use it--but I guess I can see why. They know me.  Lizzie is more vulnerable, less edgy, a bit (can I say it?) sweeter--more (if I’m honest) true of me. Am I really Liz with her razor-sharp “z” pulled at the ready? Am I that straight-ahead sure that I am right? I’m a Liz who keeps her “Z” tucked up within her unless she really needs it, a person who begins with the “L“ of Love--has a temper tantrum of resistance in the middle of things, waving that “Z” around--and ends with the “ie” of “cutie“ and “sweetie” and “sorry” : a Lizzie.

So who’s coming out? I’ll keep my public Liz; she’s the one I introduce myself as.  I publish as Elizabeth (it’s a beautiful, classic name, with a great, big closet of possible selves). My aunt and uncle will remind me of the Lisa I still hold inside. And when my friends call me LIzzie, well, I won’t correct them.

Me?

Footnote:

The great and powerful Wikipedia says that “A hypocorism (/haɪˈpɒkərɪzəm/; from Greek ὑποκορίζεσθαι hypokorizesthai, "to use child-talk"[1]) is a shorter or diminutive form of a word or given name, for example, when used in more intimate situations as a nickname or term of endearment. Also known as pet name or calling name. However, shortening of names is certainly not exclusive to terms of affection, indeed in many cases a shortened name can also be attributed to expressions of hatred, it's a grey area.”