I am talking... about names

Hey. I was thinking what to tell you today... In the last post you could read about and why you should call me Rose. So, let's talk about names.

Why do we need them? Probably to make life easier, instead of calling people like "Hey, long-haired blonde girl!"W can say just "Hey, Martha!". But earlier the names were given not only for this reason, people wanted to give children some specific character features or describe the character features or look which the person has already had.

And now? Now it's all about fashion. People don't know the meaning of names anymore. They don't know their origins. Just the sound. I am also influenced by this, I am not going to lie that it is not so. But among the "nice" names there are many different meanings, origins, versions of the name. You know, the versions of the name are something interesting. There where I live people argue about this. Every (or almost every at least) language (or language group) has its 'own' names, Like - Eric, Gunnar or Robert are Germanic, Anna, Matthew or Johannes are Hebrew, Catherine, Agnes or Agatha are Greek... But many of us know people whose names are John, Anna, Kate, Agatha, Robert... Does it mean that John or Anna myst come from Israel, Kate and Agatha from Greece and Robert and Eric must be from Germany or Scandinavia? Of course not. The names travel together with people. We have lots of variations of names, I mean, a name comes from one language and different languages created different versions. For instance - in the US you can meet a girl called Agatha, in Poland her name will be Agata and in Sweden - Agda. But still, it's the same Greek name, the origin and meaning didn't change. Just the form. The same case will be with John - Johann, Johan, Johannes, Hannes, Hans, Jan. Juhani. And again, you can meet John in the UK, Jan in Poland and Juhani in Finland. But not only, of course, Jan can also be a German. Yet, some forms are rather typical for a language, I wouldn't be so sure if you could find a Pole called Juhani.

I wouldn't be so sure if you could meet a Czech called Gunnar or a Spaniard called Radosław... Some names are more or less international: either there are many versions of a name (so Agda can explain to her American friends that her name is the same as Agatha) or the form is international, like Anna or Robert. And some names rarely appear in more than one language group, the one they come from, like Gunnar or Radosław, of course, they might be found in different languages, Gunnar in a non-Germanic and Radoslaw in a non-Slavic laguage, why not. Just sometimes it might be strange.

There where I live, in Poland, people sometimes argue about the versions of names. Some of them aren't happy when they get to know that there is another Jessica, Vanessa, Nicole, Xavier or Brian (and we aren't talking about a case when one of parents is not Polish) instead of Anna, Beata, Maria, Piotr or Sławomir. On one hand it's parents' choice. On the other hand... the child might be not very happy when they go to school and other children will laugh at it because of 'a funny name'. Of course, name is 'just name' or sometimes it has a nice meaning or origin - though it is and it sounds foreign. And here we have this argument: some people want to be modern and trendy, hence Polish Jessica, Vanessa or Xavier. And some people claim it's stupid, we have our 'own' Anna, Maria and Piotr so why do people "borrow" names which sound strange in our language? And there is another argument. There are some people who at the same time claim that Anna or Piotr aren't Polish - we should use Radosław, Sławomir etc. so typically Slavic names. So?

I think that all these groups are in some way right. Jessica or Brian aren't typical for Polish language, Anna and Piotr aren't Polish as well. Yet, Anna and Piotr are more familiar than Jessica and Brian and "Piotr" is the Polish version of Latin Petrus and English Peter. So it's more Polish than Jessica anyway. But yes, it's true that they aren't Slavic like Sławomir. Yet, this is all about people, not just words. Neither Anna nor Sławomir will make people good, smart or beautiful. And neither Jessica nor Brian will. But none of these names will make people bad, stupid or ugly as well. Jessica doesn't have to become famous. Anna doesn't have to be just one of many people in the world. First of all - Jessica doesn't have to need fame, and maybe this is the real problem. Here Jessica will be famous, at least locally, because of her rather unusual name. But on the other hand, if she wants to she can use this 'local fame'. Jessica may be lazy and get bad marks - Anna or Slawomir can as well. Jessica may be a very bad person - Anna and Sławomir too. Jessica might be not 'beautiful' (I used the quotation marks as I mean that unreal perfect look shown by media) but Anna or Sławomir might be 'ugly' as well. But all of them, Jessica, Anna and Sławomir can be great people, nice, smart, intelligent. They can have beautiful bodies, they can have beautiful hearts. They can have all these features or just some of them but still - they can. The name doesn't matter.

I was told that I will be lazy because of my name. You know... I am lazy - but I know people who have the same name and they are not, so I think it was just like a horoscope - I find something that matches the person - and yeah, it must be true! ;)

Okay, let's stop here because I am very talkative sometimes and I could speak (or write, I consider this to be just written talking) for hours and I don't want to make anyone bored so fast. I hope I didn't :)