Have you ever wondered where your name came from? Why it’s the name your mom and dad gave you the day you were born? Why it wasn’t the cool name you would have picked for yourself? With all these questions bouncing around in my head like electrons in an atom A4atom.jpg, I began to think about my name. Thinking about my name made me think about the person I was named after.
To begin with, I know I am named after my great-grandmother, Virginia, which really makes me feel special since she was such an extraordinary woman. To me, she was “Omsi,” but to those who knew her as Virginia, she was an educated, strong-willed woman who lived life to the fullest. Born in Romania to a duke and duchess, she chose to give up her birthright and marry her true love, a commoner. She taught herself seven languages, because she thought is was important for an individual to be able to communicate with others. She was a lady…I found an old etiquette book in her old attic, and she had written in the margins all the proper etiquette one needed when entertaining Americans: how to greet them, how to set a formal table, and how to sit like a lady!
No, Virginia probably is not the name I would have chosen for myself. However, it is the name my parents chose for me, and they chose it in honor of a woman whom they both love and respect. I too, love and respect her and only hope that I live up to my namesake (I don’t know about the seven languages)!
Saturday, 20. September 2008
I’ve heard it said that I was named after Dean Martin, who was famous at the time. I’m not sure I believe that, as he didn’t sing my dad’s type of music, so I have the feeling that the truth might be even more embarrassing! Your grandmother sounds like an amazing woman. Did she have a lot of formal schooling or was she self-taught? When did that branch of the family emigrate to America (if it did)?
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Sunday, 21. September 2008
A lot of my great-grandmother Omsi’s education was pretty much self taught, at least the language part from the stories I have heard. Being a “blue blood” in Romania, I’m sure she had more formal education than most, but once she chose a commoner over another “blue blood,” she was basically disinherited. We know nothing of her family line. What I do know is that her daughter, my grandmother, was born in Riga, Russia. My mother was born in Lodz, Poland. The three of them and my uncle left Poland when my mother was about 12 and went to Germany where eventually (like 8 years later), my parents met each other (Dad was a U.S. soldier stationed in Germany.)
My father is from German descent, and his grandfather (my great-grandfather) was the immigrant to the U.S. I guess that would make my dad second generation and me third. My mother, on the other hand, came to the U.S. just before I was born. I guess that would make her the immigrant in her family.
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