THE WAY IT WAS…
...Getting Your Name
by Al Eicher

Have you ever wondered how you got your name? When I conceived the idea to write this article I thought it would be interesting to ask friends and some people I just met how their name was selected. In my case, I didn’t know why I was named Allison until I asked my mother when I was about 50 years of age. The answer was, “Your dad had a cousin who died in his teen years and that’s where your name came from.”

For a boy’s name and, let’s say you are the firstborn son, you might get your dad’s first name, or it becomes your middle name. My middle name of Boyd was my dad’s first name. I looked at our Eicher/Liechty genealogy dating back to 1510 in the Switzerland/Alsace, France area. The most detailed record I could find of Eicher children names started in the 1750s. The Amish family of Jacob and Anna Eicher consisted of 10 children or more. Jacob being a pastor had children with common names from the Bible such as Jacob, Joseph, Peter, Anna, Daniel, John, Benjamin, etc. His oldest son, Jacob, married and had 10 or more children with a firstborn son of Jacob, and this Jacob now the III generation, marries Anne Marie from Alsace in 1843. Anne Marie’s mother and father’s names are Elizabeth and Joseph. Biblical names were common then and still are today.

In my research there is a well-known name in the Bible that isn’t used as a first name. I also looked in some big phone books as well, and the name is not there. Methuselah is a well-known name and considered the oldest man to live, 969 years. Noah, Adam and Seth all lived to over 900 years and we use their names. I think Methuselah would be an interesting first name, but the ACLU might object! You may recall Adam named Eve. Eve named Cain; he was born first. Who named Abel is not evident in Genesis but the name is used as a first name and last name. I have never heard of someone named Cain.

My sister has an interesting first name. You can spell it backward and forward and it is the same... ARDRA. She is not the first to have this name; a woman in Bay Port also had this name. In talking with several women and asking how they got their name, they said “I was supposed to be a boy, so instead of Paul, I became Paula.” I took a girl to the High School prom named Georgina whose father was George. I once produced a TV show with Irlene Mandrell, her father’s name is Earl. Raymond has a daughter, Rae. Henry has Henrietta and more of these names could be developed and are used today.

In high school, I had classmates named Rose, Iris and Daisy. I also had some great-aunts with names of flowers, Viola and Lily. This morning on CNN news, I noticed the Sunday anchor woman’s first name was Poppy. If you watched some of the female Olympic skiers a few years ago you would have seen Peek-a-boo Street on the slopes. She spells it, Picabo. You probably know Picabo is a nurse at a metropolitan hospital.

She works in the intensive care unit, but the hospital management doesn’t let her answer the phone any more. They said it caused some confusion when she answered the phone saying “Picabo, ICU. I have always wondered how these names were picked. I’ll bet you know who named their daughter, Chastity?

Without a doubt, events in our American History seem to generate new names. Have you ever been in a gift shop and seen a huge display of coffee cups, with one display for boys and another for girls and a different name on each cup. I am glad I wasn’t named after a coffee cup! There is one exception to this thought! If you went to the Broadway show Beauty and the Beast and you have pleasant memories of the show, you might name a child after a coffee cup. Do you remember seeing and hearing the voice of Mrs. Potts and appearing with her is the coffee cup, Chip. I am sure someone now has the name Chip. If you do not know how you got your name maybe your curiosity is now stimulated. In our rapidly changing world, let’s hope that in the future we don’t get christened with names like R2D2, and That’s The Way It Was…

• • • • •

Al and Dave Eicher provide television production services to corporations, ad agencies and nonprofit organizations.  They also create Michigan town histories and offer lecture services on a variety of Michigan History Events. You may contact them at  248-333-2010;  E-mail: info@program-source.com; Web site:  www.program-source.com.