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And I won't tell no one your name
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greygirlbeast:
What does your first name mean?
Sonya is a Russian diminutive of Sophia: Greek σοφία, "wisdom." (I should be so lucky.) I was named for my great-grandmother on my mother's and her mother's side.
What does your middle name mean?
My first middle name is Leah, which is Hebrew of indeterminate origin; I've seen translations from "weary" to "wild cow" to "mistress," so anyone fluent in Hebrew should feel to comment and enlighten me. A disturbing number of people over the years have assumed from the pronunciation that I was named after Star Wars. My second middle name, which I didn't acquire until midway through childhood, is Glixman—my mother's maiden name and one of the more creatively spelled Ellis Island bastardizations of Glucksmann, "lucky man." Could be worse. Shaun Ferguson.
What does your last name mean?
Taaffe? Have some more indeterminacy.* I've most commonly heard the name explained as a Welsh patronymic for David. (Taffy was a Welshman . . .) I've also seen etymologies based on the rivers Taff or Tâf in Wales. In truth, I haven't the faintest.
So what does your name mean when put together?
Er . . . a little lucky weary Welsh wisdom? In a river? I need fewer adjectives around here.
What would you have been named if you were the opposite gender?
Simon, which I believe is a Hellenized form of the Hebrew name Shimeon. It's connected to the verb "to hear," but I'm not sure in what grammatical capacity; I've never looked it up.
Any other name oddities?
I've never attracted any nickname that stuck. By now, I would probably respond to Sovay, which is itself a variant of Sophia. I have discovered over the years that I'm superstitious about sharing my Hebrew name and I'm not entirely sure why.
Do you like your name?
Yes. It's sort of a cultural smash-up, but I am fond of it.
What do you like best about it?
The aforementioned cultural smash-up seems to have ensured that no one else has the name. (At least, if someone does, she hasn't yet turned up on Google.) And it's peculiar, which might explain why I'm always giving my characters the kind of names that makefleurdelis28's longstanding challenge to use the spam name "Cadfael Aronowitz" in one of my stories sound, sadly, not implausible at all.
What do you like least about it?
The apparent inability of 99% of the population to pronounce my last name properly. I was most impressed by the telemarketer who managed to insert a voiced glottal stop in between the a's and consequently put about four syllables into it. I'm just waiting for a !Kung click to show up in there somewhere. Oh, and my high school spelled it improperly every year of the yearbook. Even the year I graduated. And my parents sent a letter to the yearbook editors to make sure that it would not be misspelled. That was amusing.
If you had to change your name (witness protection program, whatever), what would you want it to be?
So far I've written down three replies and ruled out each one of them for some reason or another. I may have to think about this one.
*The geography, at least, can be readily traced: the name starts out in Wales, moves to Ireland in the twelfth or thirteenth century, picks up some peerage in the 1600's, relocates to Austria and gathers aristocracy there over the next couple of centuries, and then World War I came along and all the titles went pffft. Not that my branch of the family, which came over in the mid-nineteenth century, would have been in the running for any sort of noble inheritance, but I'm still amused. At least I get to claim kinship, however distant, with some intriguing historical figures.
greygirlbeast:What does your first name mean?
Sonya is a Russian diminutive of Sophia: Greek σοφία, "wisdom." (I should be so lucky.) I was named for my great-grandmother on my mother's and her mother's side.
What does your middle name mean?
My first middle name is Leah, which is Hebrew of indeterminate origin; I've seen translations from "weary" to "wild cow" to "mistress," so anyone fluent in Hebrew should feel to comment and enlighten me. A disturbing number of people over the years have assumed from the pronunciation that I was named after Star Wars. My second middle name, which I didn't acquire until midway through childhood, is Glixman—my mother's maiden name and one of the more creatively spelled Ellis Island bastardizations of Glucksmann, "lucky man." Could be worse. Shaun Ferguson.
What does your last name mean?
Taaffe? Have some more indeterminacy.* I've most commonly heard the name explained as a Welsh patronymic for David. (Taffy was a Welshman . . .) I've also seen etymologies based on the rivers Taff or Tâf in Wales. In truth, I haven't the faintest.
So what does your name mean when put together?
Er . . . a little lucky weary Welsh wisdom? In a river? I need fewer adjectives around here.
What would you have been named if you were the opposite gender?
Simon, which I believe is a Hellenized form of the Hebrew name Shimeon. It's connected to the verb "to hear," but I'm not sure in what grammatical capacity; I've never looked it up.
Any other name oddities?
I've never attracted any nickname that stuck. By now, I would probably respond to Sovay, which is itself a variant of Sophia. I have discovered over the years that I'm superstitious about sharing my Hebrew name and I'm not entirely sure why.
Do you like your name?
Yes. It's sort of a cultural smash-up, but I am fond of it.
What do you like best about it?
The aforementioned cultural smash-up seems to have ensured that no one else has the name. (At least, if someone does, she hasn't yet turned up on Google.) And it's peculiar, which might explain why I'm always giving my characters the kind of names that make
fleurdelis28's longstanding challenge to use the spam name "Cadfael Aronowitz" in one of my stories sound, sadly, not implausible at all. What do you like least about it?
The apparent inability of 99% of the population to pronounce my last name properly. I was most impressed by the telemarketer who managed to insert a voiced glottal stop in between the a's and consequently put about four syllables into it. I'm just waiting for a !Kung click to show up in there somewhere. Oh, and my high school spelled it improperly every year of the yearbook. Even the year I graduated. And my parents sent a letter to the yearbook editors to make sure that it would not be misspelled. That was amusing.
If you had to change your name (witness protection program, whatever), what would you want it to be?
So far I've written down three replies and ruled out each one of them for some reason or another. I may have to think about this one.
*The geography, at least, can be readily traced: the name starts out in Wales, moves to Ireland in the twelfth or thirteenth century, picks up some peerage in the 1600's, relocates to Austria and gathers aristocracy there over the next couple of centuries, and then World War I came along and all the titles went pffft. Not that my branch of the family, which came over in the mid-nineteenth century, would have been in the running for any sort of noble inheritance, but I'm still amused. At least I get to claim kinship, however distant, with some intriguing historical figures.
Watermelons and Tailors - Part 2
Time slips forward again to "Half Day Closing" on the same album; I am with my friends D (male) and B (female) who have (though they can barely tolerate one another's company in waking life) agreed to come with me to the Cirque. The place is seedy and dark inside, painted mostly black, with raised, inset booths along each side, round tables, red lamps and red table candles that you'd find in Italian restaurant's on the patio. It's been decorated with circus posters and there is a little round stage in the front. We sit and wait for a little while. There is a woman singing the song, karaoke up on stage. Her friends are the only other people in the place.
Then the officer gets dragged past the table. At first, it's very hard to see the dragging agency. There are two, small, slight figures. Actually, though this was several years ago (1997), they look somewhat like Skarrow (the creature pictured in the icon, if you're not familiar)similar body plan, features, swept back hair. They are dressed, however, in robes and coats and pants and scarves and things, all of them so dark black that they absorb all the light shining on the exposed skin on the figures wearing them, making the whole appear to be made of shadow. Unlike times that I have met them before, they have no visible auras. They are also wearing very heavy gauntlet type gloves.
The plainclothes officer looks very ill and weak. They drag him in front of the stage and around to the right of it, out the door to the exit and restrooms. I get up and chase them through the door.
One of them is waiting on the other side. He jabs me in the forearm with a trio of spikes that pop out of his gauntlet. The pain, even in a dream, is horrible, and it makes me nauseous. I fall over, as they drag the officer out the back into the red light of the alley behind...