so…the word on the street is that Tallulah Willis, third daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, has filed papers to legally change her name to Lula Willis. "Just Lula" she says, because she never liked her name. her father has agreed to the name change because, he says, he knows what it’s like to grow up hating his name. especially because his father named him after Bruce Wayne, playboy millionaire (funny, i thought Bruce Wayne was batman…)
um. hello? if he knew what it was like growing up hating his own name…why on god’s green earth did he name his child Tallulah? or his other daughter Rumer???? if he had the sense to think about this before he signed the birth certificate, he wouldn’t be being needing to sign name change papers.
i understand when parents say that they want to be original. they don’t want their daughter’s class filled with Jen, Jenny, Jenn, Jennifer B., Jennifer C., Jennifer R. big Jennifer, little Jennifer etc. that they don’t want to choose a "top ten" name – even though my kids are all top ten’ers and there are no other emilys, joshs or isabellas in any of their classes.
i have a lot of friends who want to be original. they don’t share their future children’s names for fear that someone might steal it. (anyone else thinking of the Seinfeld "Seven" episode? "Seven? Yeah, I guess I could see it. Seven. Seven periods of school, seven beatings a day. Roughly seven stitches a beating, and eventually seven years to life. Yeah, you’re doing that child quite a service.") They pull their children’s names off of websites, out of books, from tv shows. they combine names to make other names. They get creative. they feminize male names. sometimes it works, sometimes it just doesn’t. today i was standing in line behind a mother who was yelling at her daughter Esmerelda. yikes. the poor little girl. i imagine she’s the only one of those in kindergarten.
Celebrities take this original thing to a new level. a low, low level. just ask Pilot Inspekter Lee, Moxie Crimefighter Jillette, Zowie Bowie, and Jermajesty Jackson. i wonder if they’ll be following in Miss Willis’s footsteps?
it gets me thinking, though, if i COULD change my name, what would i change it to? My given name is Alicia. i HATE this name. i truly believe it was misnamed. i’m NOT an Alicia. I’m an Ali, i think. Maybe i would legally change it to Ali. Do you like your name? would you change it if you could? what would you change it to?
I’ve never been a fan of my name, but never exactly hated it either. I always wanted something prettier, like Clara, Lily, or maybe Jade. I think we change our names in subtler ways though, by how we live our lives. The people around us couldn’t imagine calling us anything different, because our name moulds itself to us.
Tallulah though? That borders on cruel.
My grandmother grew up with a name she hated. When she was 20 years old, she moved to a place that was about 500 miles from her parents and decided that from then on, she would be “Jill”. At her funeral a few years ago, some of her oldest friends did not know she had changed her name. I think that’s cool.
I grew up hating my name. I tried all sorts of things like Laura and Laurie and Lauren, and eventually I grew used to Laural.
If I was anything I think I would be Ruby or Carmen. I love those names.
But, my mom’s name was Darlene and she hated it with a passion. On her 50th birthday she changed her name to Kate. I though that was the coolest thing ever. She is definitely a Kate.
Truthfully, I named my son Matthew because I thought then he could get his name on pencils and stickers. I never could.
But, then I made his middle name Thorin because we loved it, and I thought if he wants to go for a crazier name he has one ready.
I don’t like my name. It’s so “70s” – but changing it would be weird… people would whisper about me behind my back for years…. But I have thought about changing my last name back to my maiden name. But if I did that, everyone would think I’d gotten divorced…
Oh, and no, I would not get a name change, mostly because I cannot imagine my name being anything else.
My real name is Tamsen, and my mom got it from a really obscure romance novel series written in the 70s. Really obscure. Daughters of the Southwind by Aola Vandergriff. The three lead heroines are Tamsen, Arabella and Emmeline. So I always tell people it could be worse. In the end, Tamsen dies on the Titantic, and it’s very sad. 😛
Anyways, I always get questions about it, and I grew up kind of being annoyed/irritated with it… and having to lie all the time if I wasn’t in the mood to retell the same story, and lying to say it’s a family name.
But, I did always like being the only Tamsen in my class, and now I love my name. I couldn’t be anything else but a Tamsen, and I don’t go by any nicknames.
Like you, I would drop the formal form of my name for the abbreviated form, which almost everyone calls me (except for my wife when I really, really piss her off).
Oh, and my sister and I are named for two kids my dad saw on some short-lived 70’s television show.
My real name is Danita, and I dont think I would change it, but many people call me Nita anyways.
We did get my sons name from Back to the Future (the doctor character) and Hells Kitchen (the cooking show – chef) hence: Emmett Ramsay. It is not out there wierd but not common or popular either, I hope he never changes it since we love love love it.