What's in a Name?

Naming Rights

What’s in a Name?
Sunday Reflections: Naming Rights

Someone on Substack recently joked that being an author means you still get to use all the baby names your husband vetoed.

For me? Being an author who never had children means I get to use all the names I never got to give to a child, but gave to my cats instead.

Mallory. Isabella (Bella). Jasmine. Sebastian. Hilary. Joshua. Travis. Zoe.
And then there are the everyday kitty names that just fit: Slippers, KitKat, Mama Kitty, and Peaches.

The name Talina is fresh and new, she’s a Betta fish I created in my children’s book How to Hug a Fish. And Lindy Lou? A playful take on my own name. She lives in yet another children’s story.

I have no regrets about not having a child to name. Life and writing have given me the freedom to name characters and creatures who have enlivened my very own story. The naming is as simple as loving a name, offering a tribute, or choosing from the cultivated and curated names residing in my imagination.

Shakespeare’s Juliet famously asked Romeo, “What’s in a name?”
For me, it is the meaning and joy I find when choosing a name, whether it be for fur, fin, or fiction

Linda Sue
Remembering me. Becoming me.

“A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,
loving favor rather than silver and gold.”
— Proverbs 22:

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