Although my name is easy to spell and pronounce, I never liked it because it is so common among millennial females that I have always felt like an unoriginal clone. In almost all my classes growing up I was never the only “Hannah” in the class. It was always frustrating hearing my name all the time and almost never having it directed toward me. So eventually I just stopped responding all together and it was hard to get my attention. Unfortunately, I never received any kind of nickname and one does not simply make their own nickname. So, Hannah is the only name I've got. I figure that there must be something kind of great about the name or it wouldn’t be so popular and that must be why I got it.
Like many Christian families, mine has a tradition of Biblical names. My name is of Hebrew origin meaning, “"favor" or "grace of God." In the Bible, Hannah is the mother of Samuel” (BabyCenter). The story behind my name is one of faith. Hannah was a sterile woman who desperately wanted the blessing of baring children. So, she prayed to God saying, “O Lord of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the Lord all the days of his life...” (1 Samuel 1:11). She was then blessed with a child as a reward for her faith and trust in God. She later as a token of gratitude, gave her son, Samuel, to be a servant of the Lord and he grew up assisting in the holy temple. That is why my parents chose the name for their fourth child. I'm sure subliminally they had hoped that I would grow to become like the great woman for whom I was named. I'm not so sure that I am living up to that legacy but then again since the name is so common, how many other parents must have had the same false hope for their daughter?
It's no exaggeration when I say that there has always been at least one other girl with the same name as me in all my classes growing up. I can still remember that dreadful first day of my sophomore year, in third period, at a new school where nobody knew me. The teacher was going through the class roster, calling roll. Then came the fateful moment when she read aloud “Hannah” and 3 of us answered back “Here!” practically in unison. The teacher looked up from her roll sheet in awe and the whole class started to laugh. The three of us looked at each other and back at the teacher waiting for her to clarify with a last name. She clarified and moved on with a chuckle commenting how it was going to be an interesting year. That was the final straw for me. I either had to come up with a nickname quickly, or never know when someone was talking to or about me. From then on, my first name no longer stood on its own. I was to be known strictly as “Hannah Klein” for the rest of my high school days.
My parents never dreamed that my name would end up being so popular. It's not their fault that unique names weren’t exactly the trend when they were having kids. So, I got stuck with the most vanilla name that they could think of with no way to shorten it or spice it up for a nice nickname. And apparently, I never did or said anything cool enough to merit one that had no relation to my own name growing up. My parents swear “it wasn’t a common name when we chose it for you.” (Klein) every time I scold them for their unoriginality. However, I am not alone in this. A lot of other girls that share my name have the same problem and we’re all in this together.
I learned once in a religious institute class that power lies within using someone’s name and when its used just right, “A person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language” (Carnegie). I used to ignore my name when I would hear it. It wasn’t an appealing sound to me. It seemed to be thrown around almost recreationally or used as a curse in some common household phrases such as “Dangit Hannah!” or “Holy Hannah!” when something went wrong (even if I was completely uninvolved). It wasn’t until someone I really loved said my name for the first time that I heard beauty in each tone and syllable.
I got lucky with a name that rolls so easily off the tongue even when paired with my last name. That is one of its many advantages. It's easy to say, easy to spell, and it happens to also be a palindrome. That means it is spelled the same forward and backward. If that’s not cool, I honestly don’t know what is. Not many people can say that the name by which they are called, and which is on their birth certificate is a grammatical phenomenon. However, as great as that is, it doesn’t carry much weight or meaning when it comes down to why I have learned to love my name.
I can remember many distinct emotions I have felt when I have heard my name. I’ve felt panic when my mother has yelled my full name from across the house. I’ve felt disgust as I have heard my name in gossip settings. I’ve felt pride as my name has been announced before an award or presentation. However, the first time I fell in love with my name was when the man I loved said my name for the very first time. It wasn’t just the name itself. It was the intention, accent, and tone behind it that made it sound so beautiful from his lips to my ears. From then on nobody has made it sound so good.
My name means more than just a good story about faith and is more that its popularity. How I feel about it is more affected by the intention with which it is spoken than the actual word its self and at the end of the day it is mine. However, I feel that the name itself does not define me. I believe it's true when Shakespear said “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” and although I like to consider myself more a wildflower, I think I still applies. I am still learning to love my name. I hope to always hear it in such a way that makes me fall in love with it over and over.
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