Names ✨

 It is a truth universally acknowledged that a beloved place, animal, or thing is in need of a name. Or, well, if it’s not universally acknowledged at least a the practice has a long and illustrious history in both fiction and reality. 

This week we are talking about names, specifically the names we give to places, creatures, and things we love. 

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Written, performed, and produced for you by Claire Krendl Gilbert. Thanks to my daughters for their assistance playing and singing the intro and outro!

©2024 Claire Krendl Gilbert. All rights reserved.

Transcript

This week we are talking about names, specifically the names we give to places, creatures and things we love.

00:00:14

It is a.

00:00:14

Truth universally acknowledged that a beloved place animal or thing is in need of a name.

00:00:22

Or well, if it's not universally acknowledged, at least the practice has a long and illustrious history in both fiction and reality.

00:00:32

I can't say for certain when I fell in love with the practice.

00:00:36

But reading Anne of Green Gables with my mother might be a safe guess.

00:00:41

Or perhaps I simply inherited it from my father, who has an excellent penchant for wonderful names.

00:00:49

But if we go with the Anne of Green Gables in the classic novel, a precocious and imaginative young girl is adopted by siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, and many a hilarious and heartwarming adventure ensues.

00:01:05

One important habit of ants is the giving of beautiful names to places and things that catch her fancy.

00:01:12

The farm she comes to live on is already named Green Gables in the town of Avonlea, on Prince Edward Island in Canada.

00:01:20

Existing listeners may remember that my family took a trip there earlier this summer.

00:01:26

At any rate, the apple tree outside Anna's window is not just an apple tree, she is the snow queen, the lovely Ave. and takes to school, becomes lovers lane, the pond near her home becomes the lake of Shining Waters. A forest becomes the haunted woods and terrifies her at night.

00:01:47

Through the effects of her own imagination.

00:01:51

The blossoming trees along another lane, urn at the name the white way of delight.

00:01:58

Every part of Anna's life becomes more romantic and magical when she gives it a name and she is in good company with the practice.

00:02:08

I mentioned that my father loves to name things, and when I was growing up in Ohio, my parents went through a long process to pick a name for our sheep farm.

00:02:18

My dad especially tried name after name after name, struggling to capture the peaceful seclusion, verdant landscape and secretive old trees that were hallmarks of this farm.

00:02:34

He eventually landed on a name that came from a place near his childhood home in Georgia.

00:02:39

Mossy Dell Adele is a valley usually situated among trees, and that's exactly what our farm was.

00:02:49

It actually used to be called Hidden Valley, but that sounded a little too much like a salad dressing to my dad and the mossy implied the rich, lush plant life, old woods and beauty that our farm had in abundance.

00:03:03

I had pitched making a mossy doll farm here in Virginia, but my husband quickly tossed that one in the garbage we live on top of a hill, Clare, he told me.

00:03:16

Well, very well.

00:03:18

If we have to be literal about it.

00:03:20

Dell wasn't the most apt descriptor for our hilly perch in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

00:03:26

I'm sure you know by now that our farm is named Foggy Oak Farm, but it was pretty difficult for us to arrive at that name when we moved to the farm.

00:03:35

We knew we wanted to give it a name, just like my parents had named Mossy Dell.

00:03:39

But what should we go with my husband and I simply could not agree.

00:03:46

We had begun settling into the farm in the hot, hazy days of August and on the way to and from work we debate names.

00:03:54

We had, of course, noticed the towering ancient oak tree that dominated the view in the pasture behind the house, so that featured prominently in many of our discussions.

00:04:05

Old Oak farm no Oak Hill farm.

00:04:10

No Windy Oak farm, no.

00:04:14

And on and on it went until one morning in early September, we awoke to a world's waft in fog, looking out the back window, we saw the massive oak as the fog swirled around it, and we knew.

00:04:30

We were foggy oak farm.

00:04:36

Now, it's true that farms often have names, but any place can have a.

00:04:41

Does your home have a name?

00:04:43

If it doesn't already have a name, what would you name it?

00:04:47

It could be something about where it's located, or a feeling you have when you're there.

00:04:52

I think it adds a certain specialness to a place that's already special to you.

00:04:58

We can think of the names we give our animals and each other in the same way.

00:05:03

Some grown-ups get the very special honor of naming a child like you, and those names are very precious indeed.

00:05:12

My first daughter is named after my mother Cathy, but I admit that with my second daughter we had trouble agreeing on a name.

00:05:19

We just couldn't settle on one.

00:05:21

We had to really study her in the hospital after she was born to finally settle on Rory.

00:05:27

Rory is a just a name we liked, but our Rory made it her own.

00:05:33

So sometimes names have a special meaning or history, and sometimes names are something that you like and that feel right.

00:05:42

As you grow up, you might also earn your own nicknames.

00:05:46

Those could be short versions of your name or something totally unrelated.

00:05:51

In my family we have fun with what we call secret names, which are names that you discover about yourself, or that someone discovers about you.

00:06:01

She didn't call it this herself, but when Anne of Green Gables asked to be called Cordelia instead of Anne, it was because she felt like she was a Cordelia at heart.

00:06:11

Like Anne, we have discovered many secret names.

00:06:15

Rory likes to play pretend puppies with Kathy and she decided that Kathy's name as a dog is chocolate because she is a brown dog.

00:06:23

When the kids grandparents were picking their grandparent names, one wanted to be called Grammy, a lovely name traditional in my husband's family.

00:06:31

But Cathy, as a toddler, couldn't say Grammy and took to calling her Mimi as soon as she could Babble out a moniker for her grandmother.

00:06:40

And so Grammy became Mimi and has remained thus.

00:06:44

Through four additional grandchildren on that side of the family.

00:06:48

Similarly, my father wanted to be called moki, but just as with.

00:06:52

Mimi. Yeah, if.

00:06:53

They couldn't pronounce it.

00:06:55

He became Kiki and has remained so to this day.

00:07:00

I have a friend who I decided had a secret name of Gray eyed Athena after the Greek goddess because she was very wise and had grayish blueish eyes.

00:07:10

Do you have any secret names or nicknames already?

00:07:15

Animals are similar, at least in our household.

00:07:18

Any given animal will have both its official name and a series of secret or not so secret names that you uncover over time.

00:07:26

For example, one of our dogs is named Finn, but he is sometimes Finnegan Flynn rider.

00:07:31

Finnegan begin again.

00:07:33

And so on.

00:07:34

Christoff another dog is also Christopher Topher.

00:07:38

Big boy Christopher and Christopher Christopherson.

00:07:43

And so forth.

00:07:44

Cats are especially good for secret names.

00:07:48

It can take time to uncover even a handful of secret names, so it's good to have fun with the first official name you give your animals.

00:07:55

To I'll share some of my favorites and please send me fun examples from your life too.

00:08:01

Two of our current caps are named Ruth and Iggy, but in a consistent pattern for our family.

00:08:08

We had trouble agreeing on those names.

00:08:10

We were all over the place and had taken to just calling them black and Gray after their fur color while we debated.

00:08:18

Kathy wanted Cinderella and Aurora.

00:08:20

Rory appeared to either want to name both of them table or jiggly and tickles, and I wanted Tigress and Katniss.

00:08:29

Finally, my father suggested Ruth and itchy, after heroines in a movie, all the grown-ups and joy.

00:08:35

Surprisingly, the kids agreed almost immediately to those names.

00:08:41

Kathy looked at me and said, you know, Mama, I like Ruth because she's black, like our Ruff.

00:08:46

And you know what?

00:08:47

That Gray kitten is always doing scratching because she's itchy.

00:08:53

So we discovered that at the time Kathy had misheard the names and thought they were Ruff and itchy.

00:09:00

It worked for us and so they were named with the secret names of roof and itchy to boot.

00:09:08

There are a couple of favorite chicken names from my past that I think you'll enjoy as well.

00:09:13

He deserves his own story, but back when I was a kid in Ohio, we hatched a beautiful rooster.

00:09:19

He had pale yellow and gold feathers covering him from neck to wings, interspersed with ear descent, black feathers that flashed green in the sunlight, and his tail was magnificently plumed, with long arched black feathers.

00:09:34

He was also enormous. He must have weighed at least £20, which is a lot for any chicken.

00:09:40

At any rate, I can't say exactly how he came to his name.

00:09:44

Gradually over time, I believe, but eventually my brother dubbed him his full name of Imperial Gustave Rooster.

00:09:52

But you cannot simply say imperial gust of Rooster, you say.

00:09:57

Imperial Gustav rustov.

00:10:00

What are you doing?

00:10:02

He was by.

00:10:03

Far our most memorable chicken growing up.

00:10:07

Today we have a hand that we call lady Feathering Ton, who is named after a character in a TV show that we grown-ups and joy.

00:10:13

She has a large black hen with fierce black eyes.

00:10:16

She prefers to lay her eggs in a cabinet in the garage or on top of the nests of other hens.

00:10:22

She also has a terrible habit of eating both her own eggs and the.

00:10:26

Eggs of others.

00:10:27

The character she is named after is a very grasping, selfish woman, so it works for her, but as with.

00:10:33

Imperial Gustavo rusta.

00:10:36

You cannot just say lady feathering ton.

00:10:39

You have to say.

00:10:40

Lady Featherings ton chicken names are fun, aren't they?

00:10:46

Some of our current checks have great names too.

00:10:49

The kids named one butter for her yellowish hue, and one was originally named Brownie for her brown feathers.

00:10:56

Until my daughter noticed that her favorite thing to do was race around the pen as fast as she could, now she is known as Miss Motorcycle.

00:11:05

And that has become her primary name instead of her secret name, because it's just perfect.

00:11:11

We've also had pancake and waffles, syrup and syrup.

00:11:16

Marshmallow one through Marshmallow, 4, cross speak and many many other fun chicken and duck names.

00:11:24

What would you name a chick?

00:11:27

We have talked about places and creature and people names, but you may also have fun naming things.

00:11:34

Think about some famous names from history and literature.

00:11:37

Excalibur is the mighty sword of King Arthur.

00:11:40

The Telaria are the winged sandals of Hermes that allow him to fly drop near as a golden arm ring that provides endless wealth.

00:11:49

The Philosopher's Stone allows you to create gold from lead or something from nothing.

00:11:55

The list would be endless if we went.

00:11:57

Through them all.

00:11:58

But people have a long history of naming the things that they cherish.

00:12:03

You may have a stuffed animal or other toy with its own name, or many with names.

00:12:09

Some people name their cars their favorite pens, their lunch box, just about anything you care about can have its own name.

00:12:16

If you want it to.

00:12:18

I think I'm going to go name something now.

00:12:22

What about you?