The first post is a speech I wrote during a brief enrollment in a public speaking class. The prompt was to introduce yourself. What better way to introduce myself than by focusing on my name and the effect it has had on my life.
My parents have a lot of trouble agreeing on what to name their kids. It is actually quite ridiculous on how long it takes my parents to finally decide a name for their baby. Take for example, my poor sister. My parents couldn’t decide on a name until she was a bloody, squirming baby in the hospital nursery. Oh they talked about it a lot. They’d discuss it for hours, names spewing from their mouths. Debbie! Elizabeth! Chelsea! Tiffany! But whatever name one parent threw out, it was immediately shut down by the other. So when March 19th came around, my sister’s birthday, the best name that my parents had devised was Brooke Trout Toller. But by some miracle, my parents regained their senses and saved my sister years of grief in elementary school and officially made her name Brooke Taylor Toller.
Although my sister’s story is more tragic and extreme, my parents also had a difficult time naming me. I was the first so therefore my name had to be absolutely perfect. But perfect meant two very different things to my parents. On one hand, my mother loved old fashioned names, or what my father calls “librarian names”, names such as Hannah, Aubrey, and Annaliese. My father, on the other hand, was more into the popular names of his generation--Denise, Patricia, and Karen. Each parent despised the other’s preference for names, creating one big problem. How were they ever going to agree on a name? Well, with some underhand dealing and my mother’s apt knowledge of my father’s family history, they finally decided my name: Sarah Ione Toller.
I like my name. It’s actually pretty awesome. For example, my initials spell the word SIT. How cool is that?! My initials make a WORD! My name also is a sentence. Sarah (comma) I own Toller. In fact it is one of my dreams to meet John Bytheway so we can talk about our super awesome sentence names together. But what I really like about my name is the history and meaning behind my name Sarah Ione. It is that history and understanding that makes me who I am.
I will start with Sarah. Sarah. The word has two meanings to me. The first is the literal meaning of the name which is Princess in Hebrew. Now, I am not going to start a tirade about how my names fits me because I’m my daddy little princess (though I am), but rather how my name’s meaning is a constant reminder of who I am and how I should act. I am a daughter of God and that makes me a princess right? Isn’t that what they always told us in Young Women’s? And since I am princess, I have a responsibility to act accordingly just like the Sara in the book A Little Princess. Although she is reduced to a servant and sleeps in the attic, Sara always maintains her dignity and continues to keep her head high and be kind to everyone she meets. Therefore, my name is a reminder of the dignified, compassionate, daughter of God I need to be. The second meaning of my name is a more familial one. I am named after my great great Aunt Sarah Eva Paine. She was a remarkable lady. She continuously thirsted after knowledge, her home was filled to the brim with books about every subject. But not only was she a great scholar, she was a great mother, too. She did not have any children, but if you ask my grandpa or my uncles, Sarah was like a second mother to them. Pretty much she was a second mother to every kid on the block. Because of Sarah, my name takes on a meaning of curiosity and love for children. Like my great great aunt, I love to learn and can read and read and read, whether it’s reading a biography of Steve Jobs or reading a travel blog on frugal ways to travel the world. And also like my great great aunt, I really enjoy being around kids. For example, I taught the six year olds in my home ward over the summer and I had the greatest time with them. Through my name, my great great aunt memory and qualities live on.
Moving on to my middle name, Ione. It is another family-based name. In fact it is my great-grandmother’s middle name. My great grandmother Annie Ione Toller loved life. She would often go hiking and hunting with my great grandfather. She also was an avid card player and helped invent the family game. That zeal for the outdoors and games are still prevalent in my family. I have hunted before and I can totally beat you all at cards. By bearing her name, I am reminded of the wonderful qualities she had and it gives me the desire to develop those same qualities in myself.
In ancient times, names were very sacred and personal. They were your essence, your very being. I feel the same way. Though a name may seem to be only an array of letters you put on the top right corner of your English essay. I believe that names can give insight into who we are and can give us direction on who we can become.
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