(Gabrielle) (Raquel)
July 11, 2007 by Gabrielle
 So I (Raquel) ran across this draft of Gabrielle’s in the backstage area of the blog. Thinking she probably wouldn’t mind, I read it. Then I sent her an instant message to warn her that I was about to post it, because I enjoyed it and I thought she should post it. Over her vociferous complaints that it was unfinished (which is to say she suggested that I post it for her as I’m doing so she wouldn’t get blamed for the lack of completion) I insisted and ran to post it before she could stop me. More or less. I hope you enjoy this post I have unearthed for you under such hazardous circumstances.
I like names. There is great depth of meaning in names and what they mean to people. This past Sunday I was talking to a woman named Katherine. When her parents named her they decided that they didn’t want anyone to shorten her name to any of the nicknames for Katherine so they called her by her initials. K.E.M. Kem. Not Kim. Kem. When Kem got married her husband asked her to go by Katherine because her initials were changing and she wouldn’t be K.E.M. anymore. So Kem changed her name to Katherine.
Bob and Katherine have since adopted several children. Eleven to be exact. As each child entered the family Bob and Katherine gave them a new name. Sometimes the name had been their middle name, but in most cases the children were given a new name entirely. They joined a new family, started a new life, and so got a new name. Katherine is able to point back to her name change as being the same sort of thing. She had joined a new family and so she had gotten a new name just like they did.
I used to call myself Gaby (gabby). This is partly because I grew up in Erie which is just spitting distance away from Buffalo and its heavy, nasally accent. My name is pronounced Gabrielle as in ‘armadillo’. Most people would pronounce it Gabrielle as in ‘antelope’. This really bothered me so I just changed my name. But more than that I identified myself as Gaby, I thought of myself as Gaby. Gaby was a shy, self-centered, self-righteous, immature child who desperately wanted to be cool. When I moved out here to Peoria I moved away from the Buffalo accent and found that most people can pronounce my name properly. I also found that I didn’t want to be Gaby anymore. I changed my name back to Gabrielle and I also changed who I wanted to be.
Excursus- It’s odd. When I was all hung up on trying to be liked and interesting I tended to hide from people and had very few friends. When I gave up on that and tried to be who everyone thought God wanted me to be I discovered I was interesting and found several friends. These friends usually laugh when I tell them I used to be a shy, wanna-be Goth. When I was talking to Katherine I noticed that my father has always called me Gabrielle. It’s like he was giving me something to strive for, something to become. I don’t think he did that on purpose or with any deep motives. He just likes the name Gabrielle, which is why it’s my name.
I love the power of names. When you name something or someone aptly it has power. I call Crystal my sister-in-law so as not to confuse people, but really I want to call her my sister; I have named her my sister. It is the proper title for the relationship. It communicates to people how we view and interact with each other and communicating is really just a form of magic. Often I wish I could invent new words to name a relationship. There are various degrees of friendship, but they are all called friendship. It’s can be hard to aptly communicate to people what a particular relationship is because we simply don’t have the right word for it. I find that to be very frustrating.
I feel as though here is when I express some profound truth. I don’t have a profound truth to reveal. I just had words banging on the inside of my head and they needed to come out.
Amen!
Names and words are powerful, perhaps because God the Son is designated as “The Word”. The name I have taken is MacAvram — a name that reaches into antiquity and expresses my covenantal ties to a man who walked and talked with God Almighty as friend to friend.
I know many people with whom I’m friendly and/or who are friendly to me. Yet, I recently wrote to my friend, “I could lose most of my fingers from both hands and still have enough to count my real friends.” It’s a kinship deeper than blood. Where IS the word to describe such a relationship?
The only expression that comes to mind is “fire-brother” (as in “one with whom you have gone through the fire”), but it seems a little clumsy to write & say.
Uh, what?
Hi Gabrielle (and Raquel),
Just thought I’d share with you the story of my given name. My birthmother named me Mary Diane. I was born the day after her 16th birthday. She gave me my birthfather’s mother’s name as my middle name. When I was adopted (at almost 2 years old) she requested that my adoptive parents keep my middle name, but they could change my first name. Years later, after finding my birthfamily, I discovered that my mother had died when I was five.
After meeting my birthfather, and discovering his mother’s name, I consequently discovered the mystery of my middle name. (I knew about the special request, but didn’t know why she had insisted I keep the name). He did not know about the request either.
He died several years ago. Although I don’t truly have any physical ties with most of my birth family anymore. I was very grateful to have my grandmother’s name (though I never met her – she died years ago). It’s really the only thing I have that connects me to them.
Though I am thankful for my adoptive family and God’s providential work in my life through them, I am also thankful for my birthfamily, which I view as part of my providential history as well.
Thank you for the opportunity to reflect on the gift of my name.
My brother and 2 sisters were all named after family memebrs. My parents just liked Barbara – no significance. But I wished I had some tie to my ancestors. Imagine my surprise and delight when I discovered through genealogical research that there was a Barbara on my maternal grandfather’s side about 10 generations back. My parents didn’t know it, but my Father in heaven knew my desire for this connection to my past.
Part of me always wished I had been a George…