dear diary: what's in a name?

 To quote my close personal friend Juliet Capulet: 

(Fun fact: Romeo & Juliet is one of my favorite stories of all time, Shakespeare and otherwise. Maybe I'll make a post one day explaining why.) 

Today, I want to talk about something that affects everyone: our names and the role they play in shaping who we are.

For a long time, I didn't like my name. It's not that there's anything wrong with 'Eryn' per se, but as a kid, I felt like it didn't fit me. Mostly because:

1. It's unisex, and I wanted something ultra-feminine.

Having a unisex name was deeply frustrating for someone like me, who's always been a girly girl (as you can probably tell from my blog design, lol). I desperately wanted an ultra-feminine name, something like Anastasia, Victoria, or Christina (another fun fact: Christina was on my mom's list of potential names for me).

Before I was born, a family friend warned my mom against naming me Eryn because people might mistake me for a boy. My mom insisted that was ridiculous, but it turns out there was a little truth to it.

I've met plenty of guys named Aaron, and I've had people get surprised after hearing my name and discovering I'm a girl. Plus when I introduce myself, people immediately start spelling it with an A, so I have to clarify, "No, with an E," (followed by, "No, with a Y." because I was cursed blessed with a nontraditional spelling. How fun!)

I was even called "A-A-Ron" throughout high school (thanks, Key & Peele). Anyway, you get the gist. Sadly, the masculine form of my name seems to be the more poplar one, and I craved a non-confusing name that embodied my femininity. 

2. It doesn't have a natural nickname.

For some reason, I was obsessed with nicknames as a kid. They're so common, yet I've never really had one. I was always envious of people whose names had easy nicknames: Jessica was Jessie, Thomas was Tom or Tommy, Samantha was Sam, David was Dave, etc.

There's something so appealing about having a "real" name and a name everyone calls you, almost like having a dual identity. I think I envied the idea of customizing your identity: having a name on your official documents, but a different name that felt like the real you.

Anastasia could be Ana, Annie, or Stacey. Victoria could be Vicky or Tori. Christina could be Christy or Tina. "My name is ___, but everyone calls me ___." How chic!

There was no distinction for me. I was Eryn to everyone, everywhere. Of course, there were exceptions: my mom has always called me cute, affectionate names; friends and acquaintances sometimes call me "E"; and my boyfriend and I use pet names to the point it feels weird when he actually says my name. I was also once called "Eren Yeager" as a joke, which got a good laugh out of me.

My point is, younger me longed for a name I could have fun with, twist, and mold into something that reflected who I was.

However, as I got older, I realized that even though I didn't love the name Eryn, I couldn't find another name I liked better for me. There were names I technically liked more, but none of them felt like they fit. As a writer, I would just add them to my ever-growing list of potential character names. I could imagine fictional people with names and backstories galore, but I couldn't picture myself being anyone other than Eryn.

In college, I decided to do a deeper dive into my name and discovered its Irish origins. Erin comes from Éirinn, a poetic form of Éire, meaning "Ireland." Its roots are connected to Ériu, the goddess who personifies Ireland in Celtic mythology and is associated with sovereignty. Now, I don't know about y'all, but a name associated with a goddess sounds pretty feminine to me!

I don't have any connection to Ireland (that I know of), but learning the origin of my name gave me a whole new perspective. As a bonus, I've received plenty of compliments on it over the years. People like the spelling, think it's pretty, or find it unique. More than once, someone has told me it sounds/looks like a name out of The Lord of the Rings. And perhaps my favorite: my best friend once found my name in a D&D guidebook under elf names, which, as a nerd, absolutely makes me giggle. 

The aforementioned finding of my name!

The biggest thing, though, is how often people tell me my name just fits me. They can't imagine me being called anything else, either.

It took some years, but now, as an adult, I'm not just content with my name—I genuinely like it. I wish I could've seen its beauty when I was a kid, but hey, I see the vision now! At the end of the day, I’ve realized that a name doesn’t have to be perfect from the start to become something beautiful. It’s a part of our identity, but it’s also something we grow into and make our own. I may have spent a lot of time wishing for a different name, but now I’m happy to be Eryn...although I still wish I could find my name on keychains in gift shops. 

xoxo,

Eryn <3