Something random I realized today.

[apocalypsos]

I know it's a cliche, but I can seriously remember my mother asking me at some point or another during my childhood, "Well, if everybody else jumped off a bridge, would you?"

As someone stuck with the most popular girls's name of the late seventies in a grade where the percentage of girls who shared that name rose into the double digits, if I had had any balls whatsoever, I should have snapped back, "Gee, I don't know. If everybody else named their daughter Jennifer, would you?"

Granted, if I would have had balls, I wouldn't have had that problem, but still.

Comments

[foenix.livejournal.com]

Hey, John Wayne was actually named Marion. You *could* have still been Jennifer.

J

[elecktrik.livejournal.com]

I'm stuck with the exact same problem.
Right down to the name.
:/

[spyderqueen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well at least you never had to deal with they "Isn't that a Boy's name?"

Ahahaha.

[finnystix.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I'm really thankful my mom decided to name me something less common--Mara.

Even though people cannot say it. (MARR-uh. This should not be as difficult as people make it.) I've also got a VERY Norwegian last name, and it's absolutely comical how many different ways this gets messed up. But I'd rather have this kind of name than one everyone else has. (For the people in my age group... every other person seems to be either a Jessica, an Amanda, or a Katie. Agh.)

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

No, but my brother and I were saddled with a last name that no one could pronounce on the first try.

My brother, meanwhile, was named after Bryan Adams. He's still learning to cope.

[spyderqueen.livejournal.com]

I got nailed with a hypenated last name. And just how freakin' hard is it to spell Sherblom?

[thornsilver]

In the homecountry, my school class had 15 girls. 6 of them shared my name. When I immigrated, I was in ESL class for a little while. There were four of us and the teacher gave us numbers. :(

Re: Ahahaha.

[ktmobile.livejournal.com]

(For the people in my age group... every other person seems to be either a Jessica, an Amanda, or a Katie. Agh.)

Hi, my name's Katie and I... have a hideously common first name. Coupled with my hideously common last name, Morgan, this led me to the situation of going through grades 7-12 with another girl named Katie Morgan. Made for many funny mix-ups. I, the straight-A band geek, got called into the principal's office for skipping school while she, the blond, pregnant cheerleader got invited to join the National Honor Society. Hilarious.

My point? Well, I don't really have one, but I think my normal name made me into the freak I am today. I had to strive to hold people's interest, because a name like Katie Morgan just ain't gonna do it. Of course that doesn't explain freaks with freaky names. Or normal people with normal names. *shrug*

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

For added fun in my classes, all of the girls who were named Jennifer had last names from the latter half of the alphabet. So it would end up being five or six of us crammed into the last two rows, which was not in the least bit confusing when the teacher would turn around from the blackboard to see all of our hands raised to answer a question and say, "Yes, Jennifer?"

I think at one point in my childhood, we were Jen, Jenn, Jennifer, Jennie Ann, Jenny, and the sixth one depended on who was stuck going by their last name. (Which was me a lot of the time, because I was the only one aside from my eight-years-younger brother in the county's school-going population who had that name.)

[faith21.livejournal.com]

Same problem, same name, different decade (the 80s -shudder-). I also had the difficult to pronounce last name. Even though it's only 5 letters long.
We had Jennifer C., Jennifer G., and Jennifer N. in grammar school.

Although, on the bright side, my friend had a worse problem. She was one of many Hannah Lee's in a school with a rather large Asian population. They all came to the main office whenever the name was called on the PA system.

[justbluemyself.livejournal.com]

It would have been nice to have thought of that at the time.

<3 another Jennifer

Re: Ahahaha.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

There is only one other girl on the planet with my name. I checked. Which you wouldn't think would be possible, considering the whole popularity of the name Jennifer.

And yet, here she is when I Google myself every once in a while, a Girl Scout amidst a bunch of snarky fanfic and porn references. I told my brother once that someone was using my name and joining the Girl Scouts and he didn't stop laughing for five munutes straight.

[fire-and-a-rose.livejournal.com]

I still get that from my mother. I've got to say that to her now. Except Katie instead of Jennifer. *shakes head* There were something like five of us in class with names that were variations on Katherine or Kathleen. It was nuts.

[catystorm.livejournal.com]

There was a Susan, a Suzy and a Suzann in my 8th grade class. (I'm the last.) Needless to say, despite the fact that only one of us has their name pronounced "sue-san", we were all answering to it by the end of the year because the teacher downright refused to say "sue-zan".

It's a z. Is it really that hard? *stabDEATH*

[florahart]

My sister and sister in law: Jennifer.

(um...my brother? Brian)

Which is only slightly less weird at dinner than the fact that my step-dad's mother and ex married men with the same name, meaning both he and his kids refer to Mother and Chuck. Also have an aunt on each side named Patty, apparently a good forties name (of three aunts, two are Patty), and my dad's dad and my step-dad have the same first name.

Sister Jen is not married yet; we've forbidden her to marry or even date anyone named Brian, Bryan, or any facsimile thereof.

If you'd had balls, you'd have been named Jason. That's what the book says, anyway...hee.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

Actually, if I'd had balls, my name would have been Christopher. Still blah, but since I only really knew one other Chris growing up, I could have dealt with that.

My brother would have been April if he'd been a girl. I remember desperately wanting a baby sister until my mom told me what she'd be naming it, at which point I immediately decided I'd have a baby brother and nothing else. My brother is exceedingly grateful he wasn't named April. Apparetly, my mom thought she was being clever because he was born in April. Uh, no. Just NO.

[florahart]

Snort.

I was just being a smartass--best baby name book there is is called Beyond Jennifer and Jason.

;)

I'd have been Glenn. Best part: the non-Patty aunt? Married a Glenn. Yep.

Re: Ahahaha.

[finnystix.livejournal.com]

:) I think that's hilarious! It's nice having a unique name, but wow... there could be so much fun had in having the exact same name as someone else!

(Just out of curiosity, what instrument did you play in band? I'm a band geek myself... percussionist.)

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I grew up with a unisex name shared by half the girls in my grade, each of whom spelled it a different way.

Good luck dealing with something like that. I used to ask my mother why she didn't give me a simple, obviously female name that only had one spelling.

[tenebris.livejournal.com]

I share a name with a certain famous pop singer who likes short marriages, last name o' Spears? Only spelled correctly. You wouldn't believe all the jokes I get about that.

The shortened is tolerable, and almost everyone uses it, except that I'm starting to notice that all the people who have it as a first name? Are guys. Oh, mynameissostrangelyambiguous...

[http://users.livejournal.com/_redpanda_/]

we_are_jen *G*

[thenetwork.livejournal.com]

Hm. When I google my first name, I get cats. Bengal cats. First and last? I get me. I seem to be the only one, on Google, anyway. But then, I was born in Europe. And Christopher and Jennifer are the most common names here. I met at least twenty Christophers in as many years.

Balls...

[seferin.livejournal.com]

Huh. I always figured you as the type to keep a pair or two in a jar on her desk to display to the really irritating Asshats.

'Do you REALLY want to add to my collection?'

[cissa.livejournal.com]

When my daughter was about 5, she was explaining about wanting to do something because all the other kids were. I asked her if all the other kids were jumping off a cliff, would she? She thought hard, then said, "no.... but I'd WANT to."

[wiesbaden.livejournal.com]

*raises hand* Another Jennifer here. AND I have a hideously common last name, too, so I'm just a big bucket of generic. When I google my name, I get links to sites for celtic harp players and other random, not-me things. I don't seem to show up at all, and dammit, I know I'm out there! Or here. Whatever.

I still give my mother shit about this. She just *had* to be one of the cool kids...

Re: Ahahaha.

[ktmobile.livejournal.com]

:) I think that's hilarious! It's nice having a unique name, but wow... there could be so much fun had in having the exact same name as someone else!

It got pretty ridiculous, because aside from the name we were basically complete opposites.

(Just out of curiosity, what instrument did you play in band? I'm a band geek myself... percussionist.)

I play alto sax and trombone, though I "identify" more with the trombones. :) I am sure as a band geek you'll understand that. hehe.

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

As someone born in a year when the most popular girls' name was Laura and thus shares a first name with ten people in her school year, I sympathise.

Re: Ahahaha.

[fyrdrakken]

As another Jennifer (and one who gave up responding to her given name in high school), I empathize. And as one who has a porn actress sharing her given and surname, I have to share the giggles as well.

[fyrdrakken]

So many Jennifers (and Amys) in my high school that everyone called me by my last name, teachers and students.

I considered myself a great deal more fortunate in that regard than Jennifer Roach (who also went by her surname).

[fyrdrakken]

Both my parents have a sister Susan. I grew up calling the one Aunt Suzy and other Aunt Susan Gayle.

Course, Aunt Susan Gayle married a man with the same given name as Dad, so when we have family get-togethers my grandmother refers to them both by first and last name together to prevent confusion...

[fyrdrakken]

Love the icon!

[fyrdrakken]

I don't think my mother ever tried the bridge line on me, which is a pity because I had a ready-made response: "It's called bungee jumping, Mom -- duh!!!"