Growing Up Lisa: The Pitfalls of Childhood with a Common First Name

On my high school's senior class trip to Disney World, we were instructed to break ourselves into groups of four. Those four would share a hotel room and be responsible for each other during the course of the trip.

After much shuffling and debating and bargaining, we picked our groups of four. Everyone laughed when they looked at the list for my room. It read like this: Lisa, Lisa, Laura, Laura.

And it wasn't an error. There were two Lisas and two Lauras in the room.

The week was the epitome of confusion. Mornings resembled something from a sitcom. When someone asked a question, inevitably the answer would come from the wrong Lisa or the wrong Laura. Phone calls were impossible.

The truth was that it was nothing new for any of us. There were three Lauras in my group of friends alone. And in a high school where my class alone consisted of almost 900 students, when someone called out, "Lisa" in the hallway, half a dozen people would turn to answer. Each class averaged at least two Lisas, several Lauras and at least one Mary, Terry or Sue.

This was the peril of having a common name.

Sometimes I wonder what my parents were thinking. I wonder what all the parents of children with common names were thinking. For me, a common name has always meant average, boring, flavorless. Is that what my parents had in mind when they named me?

Of course I know that's not true, but I can't help but wonder sometimes.

My mother, though, has an unusual name, so that explains a lot. Names, I've come to discover, are like hair. Nobody is happy with what they have, in the same way that people with curly hair want straight hair and people with straight hair want curly hair. People with common names wish for uncommon names. People with unusual names long for the normalcy of being called Jane or Joey.

In all fairness, I suppose there are perks and pitfalls to both. I'm sure the Mikes of the world receive far less teasing than do the Moon Unit Zappas do and the Beths of the world don't ever have to worry about the teacher butchering the pronunciation of their name on the first day of classes.

Logically, I know this. Still, for a girl growing up with a common name, I can't help but long for the magic of an unusual name -- maybe something cosmic like Starlight or Neptune, or something mystical like Sage or Rune. After all, there would be no confusion in a hotel room if your roommates had names like that.

This article has been submitted in affiliation with http://www.BabyNameVote.Com/ which is a site for Baby Names.