Pick the Lie

Marilyn Monroe wasn't even her real name, Charles Manson isn't his real name, and now, I'm taking that to be my real name. But what's real? You can't find the truth, you just pick the lie you like the best.

-Marilyn Manson

Today is Get A Different Name Day, yet another of those random holidays ever so dear to my heart. Who even knew there was a whole day devoted to getting a new name for yourself?

Personally, I find this brilliant. There are so many people stuck with names they hate because their parents are either too boring or too original.

My name has plagued me for years. My first name, Jessica, was THE most popular name for girls the year I was born. Apparently my mother is a sheep and just follows the trend. She had main naming rights; my father was only allowed to do my middle name. My middle name is much more acceptable, but I’ve never felt comfortable going by it like other people I know that randomly tell you their middle name as if it’s their first name.

Going through school, there was at least one other Jessica in every single one of my classes. I had to laugh when my friend Kyli posted this link about 90s life and it mentioned the Jessica thing, because it’s TRUE. Many Jessicas were clever and went by shortened versions of their name such as Jess, or Jessie. Ironically enough, the entire reason my mother named me Jessica was so she could call me Jessie, and then she decided she didn’t like it. I personally have never felt right introducing myself as anything other than Jessica, so that’s generally what people call me.

Now I’ve since been told that when I introduce myself, I actually say my name oddly. Supposedly instead of saying Jess-I-Ka I say something more along the lines of Jess-Ka. Crazy. I don’t even hear myself saying it that way (same idea where I can’t hear myself saying muse incorrectly but everyone tells me it’s wrong so I’ve just stopped saying it at all).

It always really bugged me that half the other girls in the world had the same name as me. This meant I was relegated to being either the “nice Jessica” or the “short Jessica” or some other designation that I didn’t always like. This also meant meeting people and hearing things like “you don’t look like a Jessica” or “huh, I’ve never seen a Jessica dress like that.” I was so frustrated by this, one of my college application essays was all about how my name drove me to excel in life to separate myself from the Jessica pack.

So in theory, I should be renaming myself today. Except I CAN’T. How do you choose a new name? How do you redefine yourself and make it stick? Fact, I struggle just naming things like stories or characters. I have several baby name books somewhere in the house just for when I’m writing and I’m stuck on naming my characters. Not that the books actually help when I’m stuck on a name. They do however inspire stories sometimes where I see a name and just instantly get a character.

The only things I’ve ever enjoyed naming were my mixed CDs. Yes, back in the day when I still made CDs for the car instead of plugging in my iPod, I greatly enjoyed giving them interesting names. Since all my CDs were completely random mixes of music, the name didn’t really matter as long as I could remember it. This is how I ended up with gems like “Sugar Sweet Exposure,” “Beware Closing Doors,” and “Don’t Microwave the Monkey.” Oh and don’t forget the frequent passenger favorite, “Tie Me Down & Go GRR.”