Saturday, October 25, 2008

Names

It's funny how we get our names. Sometimes newborns get named after family, friends, things, places, or something that seemed really cool at the time. Some seem a bit out there, but I guess you can get used to anything after a while.
I'm told I got named after my big brother's friend. I need to go find that guy and thank him I guess. Mine is a simple name. Three letters, Jay. Some folks just want to spell it J. Then when folks hear my last name they think maybe I just lied to them. Does it get any easier than Jay Smith? Many people try to repeat it back to me thinking they missed part of it. They try Jerry and Jason among others.
Then come the nicknames. Four-eyes was pretty common for me through elementary years since I started wearing glasses in second grade. They paid for it though. At least some of them (just kidding). People tried Smitty and others. Jaybyrd stuck by the time high school years rolled around. That kind of shortened to just Byrd after a while.
Dad kidded that everyone used to be named Smith until they sinned and had to change it.

On another note ...
I've met folks that love to tell people where they are from. This one guy would say, "Hi, I'm Bill and I'm from Earth. " He wouldn't say Earth, Texas. Just Earth. Anyway it sounded bizarre.
Likewise this other guy would say, "Hi, I'm Bruce and I'm from Venus." Yep there's a Venus, Texas too.

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