What's in a Name?

For the past school year I have been one of two social chairs for my graduate group, Agricultural & Environmental Chemistry. For next year I was voted in as one of two student representatives--so I will work with my friend, John (Rudi's daddy), as a liaison between the students in our group and the faculty. I really enjoyed being the social chair because I got to cook all the food for the major events and schedule happy hours and fun field trips.

Last night we had our last happy hour event for this school year at a trendy restaurant called Bistro 33. For most happy hours we get 1 or 2 faculty to show up and maybe 8-10 students. At the big annual group meeting last week I called attention to the fact that we don't have a lot of faculty involvement in our group and that ALL students (not just me and the other officers) really want more faculty to attend our social events. Well...last night we had 24 people come! And 1/4 of them were faculty. It was really fun!

My professor, Vic, came along and we got to chatting about people's names and what they mean. There was a girl at the table named Marisol, which means sea and sun. How nice, I thought. I told Vic that I dated a guy in high school who once commented that my name, Julie, is "almost like beautiful" in French, jolie. Almost like beautiful?! Gee, thanks. Vic laughed and asked if that guy was Dave, who was busy chatting up a storm with one of the atmospheric professors at another table. I laughed and said no way would I marry a guy who would call me "almost beautiful."

So I got to thinking...what does my name actually mean? I searched for it on babynames.com. Apparently it means "downy and soft." I assume that is supposed to be a personality attribute but I don't think my personality is "soft." I can be abrupt and am very to-the-point. Downy means soothing but I'm still not convinced that my name describes my personality. That high school boyfriend was probably closer at describing me. Which is actually fine, because I believe there is always room for improvement. Maybe some day I can justify changing my name to Bella or Nefertari, both of which mean beautiful. (Eh, who am I kidding? I don't care how I look! A better name for me would be Jarla, a feminized version of Jarl, which means Man of Control. Haha! I couldn't find any names that meant "organized" but I swear, I did look for one.)

Under my name someone posted a list of all the songs about Julie. I have to admit, the only song I've ever heard is the Shaggy song:

• Big Julie - Jarvis Cocker
• Hey, Julie - Fountains of Wayne
• Julie - Jens Lekman
• Julie - Prism
• Julie - Shaggy featuring Ali G
• Julie - The Levellers
• Julie Christie - Lorraine Bowen
• Julie Christie - Stephen Duffy
• Julie Don't Live Here - Electric Light Orchestra
• Julie With... - Brian Eno
• Julie Written On The Fence - The Lilac Time
• Julie's in the Drug Squad - The Clash
• Julie, Do Ya Love Me - Bobby Sherman
• Oh, Julie - The Crescendos
• When Julie Comes Around - The Cuff Links

Incidentally, I looked up the meaning for David: the beloved. (That's a smack-on definition of my Davie!). I also looked up the meaning of that high school boyfriend of mine. His name means "supplanter" which means to take the place of (another), as through force or scheming. I guess we know why I married Dave instead...

=o)