What's in a Name?

My first name, Julie, is of Latin origin and was very popular from the 1950's to 1970's in the United States. Julie is a deviant of the French name Julia, which means "youthful or soft-haired" , and is the feminine version of Julius. I do not find a lot of meaning in my first name.Beyond having sort of blond hair, that definition doesn't have any significance to me. Having a birthday in August and entering school later, making me one of the oldest kids in my grade has made me feel old pretty often compared to my peers, which is not fun at any age. One of my mom's cousin's is named Julie and my mom wanted to name me Julie because she thought it was pretty. It's convenient having Julie as a first name because rarely has there been more than one in any setting I am in. Though, since Julia is more common now some people think my name is Julia and there is occasionally a Julia in whatever group I am in. What is more significant to my family is my middle name Anne. My great-aunt and my aunt on my dad's side are both named Anne. Both my parents wanted my middle name to be Anne and they chose my first name based on how it would sound together with Anne. My dad's side of the family, who live in Georgia, call me Julie Anne when I visit. So Julie Anne holds more significance because it reminds me of being with family and how we have Southern traditions. My sister calls me JJ and it is a nickname I can see myself passing off as my preferred name to my future friends because it does not carry the weight of Julie or Julie Anne.

I understand what Quindlen is talking about. I do not know if I want to keep my last name Dodson even if I never get married. There is some bad history between my dad and his side of the family that I can see being repeated with me and my sister someday. I do not want to be reminded of that everyday when I sign my name. My dad likes to remind me of all the great members of his family as motivation to be the best at something, anything, and how much they would have loved to spend time with me. All I can think is that if they laughed at some of the jokes he makes or made similar jokes I would also add their names to people I should ignore to some extent for my sanity. Still, since I am left with the family I have I should be grateful, not everyone gets a family and extended family who wants to know how their doing. It does not feel so much of a blessing when you are modifying behavior to deflect conflicts within the family or towards yourself. With school, the priority is to deflect possible conflicts between you and teachers and you or other students and because of that I feel like I have not so much as filled a different identity but chose to be absent of identity outside of what people see or hear from me in class. There can't be conflict with someone who is not fully there.