If you’ve been to my site before, you have probably noticed that I’ve changed my name. There’s a very good reason for this. Names matter. The wrong name can really weigh a person down. If you don’t believe me, ask Archie Leach (better known as Cary Grant). The right name, on the other hand, is magical. Mark Twain and Dr. Seuss are names to conjur with. Samuel Clemens and Theodore Geisel, though perfectly good monikers, just don’t have the same pizzaz.
So, names are important, and I’ve had a slew of names in the nearly six decades of my life, none of which really felt like mine.
- I started out as Patricia Louise Kuhn. My mother wanted to name me Robin, but my brothers and sister insisted I be named Patrick or Patricia because I was due on Saint Patrick’s Day. However, I arrived three days “late.” I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard this story, always with the hilarious punchline “and she hasn’t been on time for anything since.” Nuff said. I was called Patty until 5th grade, at which time–there being five other Patricia’s in my class–I became Tricia.
- A week before my nineteenth birthday, I got married and eagerly changed my last name to Sanborn, grateful that I wouldn’t ever be called “Kuner pickle” again. I continued to answer to Tricia, however, which most people shortened to Trish.
- Six years later, that marriage ended. I held on to the Sanborn but dropped the Trish and started telling everyone to call me Patricia, instead. This was the “yuppy” phase of my life, and I thought Patricia Sanborn had an upwardly mobile ring to it.
- Ten years later, I met and married my second husband and changed my name to Patricia Sanborn McFadden. I dropped the Louise and kept the Sanborn because I wanted to acknowledge all the phases of my life up to that point. I also started a pre-school. Since Patricia was too much of a mouthful for the kids, I became “Miss Pat” to them and just plain Pat to everyone else.
As you can see, my name(s) say a lot about my history and associations, but not very much about me. They’re all just labels. I don’t feel like a Patty, Patricia, Trish or Pat.
Okay, here comes a slightly weird part of my story. About fifteen years ago, I was reading in bed one evening and a very pleasant, deep male voice said “Your name is Green.” I figured I’d gone round the bend. However, I’ve never heard any other disembodied voice, and finally decided it probably wasn’t a psychotic episode, after all. Which meant that my name, apparently, was Green. Great.
Except . . .Green didn’t feel any more right to me than Patricia. Was it my last name? Pat Green? Ugh! My first name? Green McFadden. Marginally better but still no cigar. How about the color green in some other language? Verde? Vert? Still no good. I tried Pansy Green, Shamani Green and just plain Green. I named my publishing company Green Turtle Press, to show my appreciation to the voice without actually going “Green.” I tried different spellings. I began wearing nothing but green clothing. But my heart just wasn’t into “Green” as a name; I got frustrated and dropped the whole thing for long stretches of time.
Then, last week, I told about the mysterious voice and its cryptic message at a women’s gathering I sometimes attend. The next morning, I ran into one of the women who said, “I’ve been thinking about your story and I think you should see if there’s a Celtic word or name that sounds like “Green.” Even though I have a lot of Scottish/Irish ancestry, am very drawn to that part of the world and took a trip to Ireland and Scotland with my daughter a couple of years ago, this possible solution to the mystery had never occurred to me.
I started googling Irish names and almost immediately ran across “Grian” (pronounced Gree-un, like Ian with a Gr in front of it), which is the Celtic word for sun and also the name of an Irish sun goddess. As soon as I found it, I knew this was my name. I started asking people to call me Grian. I got the grianmcfadden dot com and started redoing my website.
Sure, there are bound to be a few complications, of course. For one thing, all my writing up to now has been published under the name of Patricia McFadden. But that’s not a biggie. Lots of writers have several pen names. And, no, I don’t plan to change my name legally. Too much hassle. My sister’s legal name is Carol but everyone has called her Susie all her life (which is another story), and she doesn’t have any major problems with it. And, no, I’m not going to expect my brothers and sisters and ninety-four-year-old mother to call me Grian. But I am doing my best to retrain my friends, all of whom seem to be taking it in stride.
What’s in a name? Plenty, if it’s the right one.
