Have you ever wondered how different your life would be if you’d been given a different name? Say your parents had named you Gertrude instead of Ashley, or that your assigned surname was Kamakowski instead of Bennett, and thus you would have never sat next to that Campbell boy you ended up marrying who was seated beside you alphabetically in ninth grade homeroom? Do you ever ponder these things, or is it just me?I was never one of those kids who hated her name. My mom designated me Kristin Leigh, because she said it sounded like a movie star name should I ever make it to Hollywood and want to drop my family name. Although, I wasn’t always supposed to have been a Kristin. My parents—hippies in San Francisco in the late 70’s—wanted to name me “something earthy, you know, like Lake…or Tree…or Grass.” Thank GOD they went with something normal. Because Grass Luna just doesn’t have the same ring to it, now does it? After they opted for a more normal-sounding name, my mom and dad each made a list of girl names they like and then compared. The only two names they had in common were Kristin and Jessica. Can you imagine me a Jessica??? Not that there’s anything wrong with Jessica—I’ve known quite a few brilliant ones in my years—but it just doesn’t suit me one bit.When I was named Kristin, it wasn’t a popular name. Have you ever stopped to think that you hardly know a Kristin who was born before 1982? Well actually, that thought’s probably never crossed your name unless you do indeed share my name…but now, think about it. Can’t come up with a Kristin over 30, can you? It was a name that kind of just cropped up at the start of my generation, it seems, and a popular one at that. Why, on my third grade basketball team, there were SIX Kristins– well, three were KristEn, the improper spelling of the name, but we won’t hold that against them—on my team of 10. Now, what are the odds of that happening?

And still, as common a name as it is, NO ONE can seem to spell it right. Doctors’ appointments, trips to the hair salon, waiting lists at restaurants, they get creative with the spelling—I’ve gotten everything from Krysten to Christan to Khristyhn, no joke—but never EVER do they get it right. It almost makes me wish I’d been named something simple and easy like Ann, but then inevitably people would be tacking on an “e” to my name for the rest of my life.

While I was always completely fine with my name, I did have some favorites that I would have probably traded for if given the option, and every one of my My Little Ponies bore some combination of that particular handful of names — Elizabeth, being my absolute favorite, with Grace, Emma, Hope, Reagan, all being up there, too. It seemed like everyone I knew growing up had Elizabeth as a middle name, and I was extremely jealous — particularly, since I come from a place where double names run rampant, so you almost always knew someone’s second name.

My friend Jill recently sent me a link to UrbanDictionary.com—the same site I used to try and prove to Scott it’s “SHORT BUS,” not “yellow bus” (because duh, all buses are yellow); it turned out, according to Urban Dictionary, that “yellow bus” is a Bay Area term used interchangeably with “short bus;” I still maintain that I’m right—and she told me to search my name. So I did. The results? Quite spot on, I’d say:

kristin

One of the coolest people you will ever meet. She is always there when you need her. She likes to kiss her guy friends. She got that cashflow. Drives a silver mustang, and don’t take shit from no one.

Ex: “She be fly”, Nah, she be kristin.

That’s right, you heard it: I don’t take no shit from no one. HA. The next one was even better:

kristin

A pathological liar that loves Asians.

Ex: I bet that Kristin is off making Asian babies.

And then the last one:

kristin

a language used by someone who wants sex, used to turn people on.

I’m not even going to give you the example for that one…I mean, who comes up with this stuff? But Scott and I had hours, OK 10 minutes, worth of fun with this thing searching every combination of our names.

What about all of you, did you grow up resenting your name? Was there something you always wished you’d been named instead? I mean, if Hannah Montana can change her government name from Destiny Hope to Miley Ray, what are you doing sitting around wishing you’d been born with a WASP-y label like “Preston Anna Louise Roosevelt III?”