My Name is Karis. My Name is Me.

Ever since I was given the writing prompt about what my names are, I have been obsessed with what we call each other.  Names are not so simple as we would like to think.  Our names are our identities.  So what is your name?  What story does your name tell?  Where does it come from?  Where has it been?

I've had lots of names.  We'll start with the original:

Karis is Greek for grace or gift (or, as I've read, small crustacean), and it is pronounced like Paris, only with a K.  My mom heard the word used in a sermon once, and she loved it.  My dad wanted to name me Kas (my last name is pronounced Ket... put the two together, and think about it) because he thought it was funny.  He also wanted to name my brother Zacheriah Xerxes because he thought it was cool.  My mom disapproved of both ideas.  So Dad gave only gave one stipulation, that our names both start with a K.  My brother ended up with a family name on his side: Karl.  I got a different name: Karis.  I quite like it.

My middle name is the name of my mother's sister, my Auntie, whom I love.  Usually I got called by both names if I was in trouble.  "Karis Marie!!" she would shout.  Sometimes a friend of mine uses my middle name if I do something retarded.  "Karis Marie!" she says, and then laughs, because usually it's funny.  (If it's not funny, she doesn't usually call me anything, and that's worse.)

Marie is definitely one of the most common middle names among American white women.  When I was in college I had a roommate whose middle name was also Marie.  One night a friend was spending the night at our house, and while playing video games at 2 in the morning she looked up at me and asked me what my middle name was.  "Marie," I answered.  "Really??  ME TOO!!" she said.  "Really??" I said, because I also thought it was very cool.  "Yeah!  Do you spell it M-A-R-I-E?" she asked.  I blame it on the video games.  I laughed, and answered her, "No, I spell it M-A-R-R-I-E."  "You do?" she said.  "No - how else is there to spell it??" I said.  And it became a long running joke, all the different ways you could spell 'Marie,' and we began referring to each other as Marie (still do).  For her senior recital I made an 'M' poster and wrote down all the possible ways to spell our middle name, including, 'Muhree,' 'Mareigh,' and 'Marree.'  Some of them were much more ridiculous.

Nicknames were hard to come by with such a short name, but I had a few.  One of my babysitters called me 'Kay' when I was small.  I was with her after school until I was in the fifth grade.  I often refer to people now by the first letter of their name.  I had a friend in the eighth grade call me Kari, and a friend in high school liked to call me "Care-Bear," which stuck with her for four years.  I never minded.  Sometimes people call me simply "Kar" (like "care"), my gym teacher called me by my  last name, and when I was in the sixth grade a little boy took to calling me Carrot Stick.  At the time it was very hurtful (sixth grade totally sucked in general), but later on, after telling a family friend the story and having her revive the old nickname, I learned to be okay with it.

My all time favorite nickname, however, has to be the name my dad called me as a child.  Probably it had more to do with being exclusive to my dad than anything else, but I loved hearing it.  He called me Herm.  When I would see him at the end of the day, the first thing he would say to me was always, "Hey, Herm!"  I asked him, "Daddy, why do you call me Herm?"  And he told me it was because my brother was a "him" and I was a "herm."  I thought it was silly, but I loved it nonetheless.  As I got older the name began to fade, and sometimes I would ask him to call me Herm again, so he would, but it never lasted.  I guess we all have to grow up sometimes.

So what is your name?  What is your story?  What do people call you?

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