What’s in a name? | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: What’s in a name? | Previous Challenge Entry
By Corinne Smelker
02/02/22
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When they handed him to me, I was flabbergasted. This little red-faced human was mine? I was scared I would drop him! Before he was born the closest I had been to a baby was when my cat had kittens.

I had a name already picked out, Aidan John, A.J. for short. My father flipped. “Why give your kid a name and then not use it?” he protested when I mentioned my plan. Then he followed it up with, “And Aidan? In this day and age that will get shortened down to Aids. What are you thinking, girl?” I didn’t show it, but I was hurt. I thought Aidan was a wonderful name. I even thought of using the Irish spelling, Aodhan, but realised almost no one would know how to say it.

After visiting hours were over, I settled down on my hospital bed, my new-born son in the tiny bassinet beside me. His swaddled body was still, and his perfect features mimicked mine in every respect.

I pulled out my battered old baby naming book – the same one I had pored over for months in anticipation of naming my child. Some I knew I would never use – names that reminded me of old boyfriends, names that would not go with my surname, names that were too ‘out’ there – Moon Unit, a child from the 1960s came to mind! As a single mom I didn’t have to please a husband, but I wanted a name that my father wouldn’t freak out about.

I flipped through the book, Grant, Lance, Llewelyn (which was a favourite but wouldn’t go with my surname), Anthony, Noah… nothing caught my fancy. I threw the book down and looked over at my sleeping son. “What am I to do?”

My roommate turned on the television for the evening news. Warwick Greenaway* came on. I vaguely knew him through his sister, Caroline, so I desultorily listened to the headlines. As I watched, something niggled at the back of my mind, something about the name.

I picked up my baby name book and flicked to ‘W’ – “Wade, Warren, ah, Warwick. Warwick, ‘after the county Warwick, Earl of Warwick, the kingmaker. To crown a king.”

That’s right – I dredged up an old memory of medieval history – the Count of Warwick, or as he is known today, the Earl, was responsible for ensuring that Edward IV AND Henry VI were crowned as Kings of England.

“The kingmaker, to crown a king,” I mused quietly. Who was it who said, ‘What’s in a name?” Shakespeare? I decided then and there that my son, although likely to never actually be a Count or an Earl, deserved to have a name that would crown kings!

I picked up my slumbering child, still unsure of my skills as a mother, but never surer of my love for this precious life, and for the name that I had chosen – Warrick John.

* https://www.facebook.com/122121361542/posts/veteran-broadcaster-warwick-greenaway-has-died-at-the-age-of-60-the-former-news-/10157503302041543/

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