Our granddaughter
Eliana mentioned in one of her posts on our family Vlog that she has been
asking her friends to call her “Ellie,” and most of them are now using that
shortened version of her name.
This reminded me of
an issue I had with my own name many years ago. As a girl growing up in the Midwest,
my full name, Rebecca, was rarely used. My family called me “Rebbie,” probably to
some extent since I had a younger sister, Deborah, who was and is called “Debbie.”
But teachers and hence friends in school simply took the liberty of calling me
the common nickname for Rebecca, “Becky.” I never really liked Becky, at least
in some part because my maiden name was Belkin and I always thought that Becky
Belkin was a fairly unattractive name.
Not long after Barry
and I started dating seriously, this topic came up in conversation and I shared
with him the fact that I had never really liked being called “Becky.” Dating
someone named Barry just added to the Becky issue – Becky and Barry sounded as
silly to me as Becky Belkin! Barry started calling me Rebecca and after a short
while everyone else followed suit.
I do not know whether
“Ellie” will stick or she will go back to Eliana. I just hope that one day she
will meet someone who will call her whatever she wants to be called and
influence everyone else to do the same.
Have a wonderful
weekend.
Love,
Rebecca
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