Welcome to June's Secret Subject Swap. Again 12 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.
Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts.
Sit back, grab a cup and check them all out:
Spatulas on Parade
The Blogging 911
My subject is
How did you get your name?
Are you named after anyone?
Would you change your name if you could?
Are you named after anyone?
Would you change your name if you could?
It was submitted by The Lieber Family - thank you, Rabia!
I just recently answered the question whether I like my name here.
When I got this prompt my first thought was "my Mom should write a guest post for this one." Well, she's more of a photographer than a writer, plus she doesn't speak English, so it's up to me.
As far as she told me my parents wanted to honor my Mom's Dad's heritage. I talked about my Granddad in the very first Use Your Words post. He was born in Russia, so I could have been named anything along the lines of Ekaterina, Yuliya or Natalya.
However for some reason my Mom was convinced I was going to be a boy, and my name would have been Michael or Thomas. (Not very Russian??!!) I had classmates called Michael and Thomas, several of them, actually. Michael was a bully, and I certainly didn't want to share my name with him! The Thomasses (is that plural for Thomas?) were cool, so that would have been fun.
So my being born as a girl called Tamara made me pretty unique. This is what it looks like in Russian characters, by the way:
Тамара (the other names mentioned above are Екатерина, Юлия and Наталья, looks very exotic, right?)
I didn't know any other girls called Tamara, and sometimes I wished I had a regular name like Stephanie or Michelle (I ended up calling my dolls Stephanie and Michelle).
Imagine my suprise on my first day of college when I met my new classmate Tamara! She went by Tammy, so we usually didn't get mixed up.
She was a year or two older and very accomplished. She had her own little apartment, a car and wasn't afraid to negotiate with our professors about due dates and grades while the rest of us was living with our parents, depending on public transportation and taking for granted whatever we were being told.
After graduating I lost touch with pretty much all of my college friends. (Only just met some of them last fall.)
Many spent some time abroad, went to law or medical school or had to join the army (mandatory for all 18 - 20 yo Swiss boys who meet the fitness requirements.)
Me, I just started my "career" as abanker coffee person.
When I was in my 30s, something must have happened.
I would stroll through the mall and hear somebody shouting "Tamara!" Of course I'd look around only to notice that a toddler was running towards (or from) her Mom... This began to happen on a regular basis.
Looks like my name had become popular?
Speaking of popular, look how names have changed in the past+/- 40 years (of course, those are very regional preferences, pretty much limited to the German speaking part of Switzerland. I think as you travel to actual Germany you'll hear different names):
One day a couple of years ago hubby came home from work and told me "Ms M recommended us to a friend of hers, so it looks like we're getting a new client, and the manager seems to know you!"
He told me her family name, but it didn't sound familiar at all.
Until she called when I was at the office. It was my college mate Tammy! She had gotten married, that's why I didn't recognize her new name.
This slightly blurry picture was taken a couple of months later when Colin helped distributing our mandarine baskets:
How about you? How did you get your name? Do you like it? Leave me your comment down below and please go and check out the other blogger's posts!
I just recently answered the question whether I like my name here.
When I got this prompt my first thought was "my Mom should write a guest post for this one." Well, she's more of a photographer than a writer, plus she doesn't speak English, so it's up to me.
As far as she told me my parents wanted to honor my Mom's Dad's heritage. I talked about my Granddad in the very first Use Your Words post. He was born in Russia, so I could have been named anything along the lines of Ekaterina, Yuliya or Natalya.
However for some reason my Mom was convinced I was going to be a boy, and my name would have been Michael or Thomas. (Not very Russian??!!) I had classmates called Michael and Thomas, several of them, actually. Michael was a bully, and I certainly didn't want to share my name with him! The Thomasses (is that plural for Thomas?) were cool, so that would have been fun.
So my being born as a girl called Tamara made me pretty unique. This is what it looks like in Russian characters, by the way:
Тамара (the other names mentioned above are Екатерина, Юлия and Наталья, looks very exotic, right?)
I didn't know any other girls called Tamara, and sometimes I wished I had a regular name like Stephanie or Michelle (I ended up calling my dolls Stephanie and Michelle).
Imagine my suprise on my first day of college when I met my new classmate Tamara! She went by Tammy, so we usually didn't get mixed up.
She was a year or two older and very accomplished. She had her own little apartment, a car and wasn't afraid to negotiate with our professors about due dates and grades while the rest of us was living with our parents, depending on public transportation and taking for granted whatever we were being told.
After graduating I lost touch with pretty much all of my college friends. (Only just met some of them last fall.)
Many spent some time abroad, went to law or medical school or had to join the army (mandatory for all 18 - 20 yo Swiss boys who meet the fitness requirements.)
Me, I just started my "career" as a
When I was in my 30s, something must have happened.
I would stroll through the mall and hear somebody shouting "Tamara!" Of course I'd look around only to notice that a toddler was running towards (or from) her Mom... This began to happen on a regular basis.
Looks like my name had become popular?
Speaking of popular, look how names have changed in the past
He told me her family name, but it didn't sound familiar at all.
Until she called when I was at the office. It was my college mate Tammy! She had gotten married, that's why I didn't recognize her new name.
This slightly blurry picture was taken a couple of months later when Colin helped distributing our mandarine baskets:
How about you? How did you get your name? Do you like it? Leave me your comment down below and please go and check out the other blogger's posts!
Happy weekend!
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