New Kid in the Hallway posted a meme today that points to the JobPredictor website.  Plug in your name and the site runs its numerological voodoo magic and tells you what your profession should be.  Well the site got me thinking about names and naming, not like I writing a paper on the topic or anything like that.  LOL  So here goes.

I am named after my mothers first real doll, the Lois Ann doll.  She lives in a buffet drawer now, the doll not my mother or me for that matter, laid out nicely in her cami, socks, and shoes.  She is wrapped lightly in plastic waiting for the day when I can afford to have her refurbished - the doll equivalent of a face lift.  She is roughly 68.

As a child I hated that I had this stupid old-fashioned name because of some silly old doll.  I mean come on who really names their kid after the doll they got when they were five, even if they have spent years telling people that is what they would do.  Of course those words were written by a women who, at nine, started telling people she would be college professor someday...might make sense if I was a legacy but I'm not so who knows where these things come from.  Besides there was another girl in my class with the same two names and I always hated that there were two of us, nothing against her to be sure.

You see most of the women in my mothers family went by two names...Mary Helen, Mary Margaret, or Anna Mae for example.  And well they were all at least my mothers age...they were OLD.  LOL  I wasn't old, a smart arse but not old.  So at 13 I announced I was no longer answering to Lois Ann, I would be Lois or nothing at all.  And so I did it, slowly I retrained most of my family to just call me by my first name.

Then somewhere around 21 I realized that parents may name kids but it's up to the kids to make those names their own.  And of course since I was always supposed to use both names, and my parents were gone, I thought a lot about how I could honor them and still not have to live with the double moniker.  So I began using Lois Ann as my professional name.  Yes I know that 21 year olds don't have much of a professional life, at least I didn't but that is how I decided to use the name any way.

So I have two monikers no matter what.  I have Lois Ann for academic articles and other professional obligations but I prefer the first name only for conversation.  Either works to tell the truth.  I answer to almost anything just don't call me Louise...long story.

Oh and my grandmother gave me the doll a number of years before she died.  Now I guess I think it's kinda cool being named after my Mom's doll it shows my mother was a lady who made up her mind and stuck with it...especially with things and people she loved.

There have been, of course, a string of nicknames over the years, very few of which are still in common use.  At least very few of them that I actually hear used to refer to me in the flesh.  And then almost two years ago I added to the list myself when I took on prolurker as a nickname.  Of course I don't refer to myself with that one, and in truth I mostly use it to refer to the weblog, though each post is signed with it "posted by prolurkr."

And the JobPredictor definitely sees some striking differences between these names.  According to it Lois Ann should be a Heavy Weight Boxer, Lois is a future Prime Minister, and prolurker will excel at "anything where you can kiss ass."  Oh dear me.  Not sure how to align all three of those...a Prime Minister with a weight problem and just a touch of schizophrenia so she modulates between beating the crap out of people and kissing their bottoms?  Or maybe she is sadomasochistic and enjoys both beating and kissing at the same time.  *shivers*  I think I may have take that analysis too far especially for a pacifist. 

When I entered my old chatroom moderator nickname it says I should be Head Teacher...now that one is right on the money.  Besides I just can't picture a Heavy Weight Boxer being named after their mother's first doll.

The Lois Ann doll is a redhead but so was my mother, though her's was much darker than mine. I should note that the picture is not of a Lois Ann doll, just a pretty redheaded doll I found online.

Posted by prolurkr at October 11, 2005 11:32 PM

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