What's in a name?

I just spent a fabulous weekend with my mom, her sisters, my sisters and brother, my dad, and other relatives celebrating my mom's 70th birthday. We had a great time telling stories about our very large family. And the more we talked, the more names were thrown around and it was hard to tell who was who and keep track of everyone. So, I decided to make a little cheat sheet. Here goes:

I am named after my aunts Mary and Leah. The hyphen makes it all one name (and confuses the hell out of everyone...I get called "Mary", "Mary Lee", "Maralee"...and no one knows what a hyphen is. Hint: it's not an apostrophe!). Mary and Leah are my mom's sisters. There's also a Laurie. And a Butch, Bill and Todd, but those are brothers. My brother's name is Todd. But we call him Doug. I married a Doug once. That made things confusing, until I got divorced and remarried a guy named Jeff Moore. I also have a cousin named Geoff Moore. Spelled different, sounds the same. I have another cousin named Demi Moore. Not the actress. But she looks like the actress.

My niece is named Sydney and my cousin's daughter is named Sydney. Growing up my cousins Alison and Jenny were best buddies. Jenny named her daughter Allison. Jenny also has a daughter named Leah. Jenny's middle name is Leah. After her mom, Helen Leah. After her grandma, Florence Leah. Can you see where this is going? We like Leahs.

My dad's name is Bill and I have an uncle Bill. I have two Aunt Jackies. My cousin's name is Danny, after his dad, Danny, but we called him Charlie until one day he mysteriously became Danny again. He has a daughter named Danielle (Dani). My grandpa's name was Charles Franklin Patton. They called him "Doc" because he was a doctor. His son was named Charles Franklin Patton, Jr. We call him Butch. HIS son was named Charles Franklin Patton, III. He's called Chas. HIS son is named Chase, and I'm pretty sure it's also short for the CF Patton name. Plus, there's another cousin named Chase. I have an uncle Dirk and a cousin Dirk. My niece is named Florence after her dad's mom and my great-grandmother. But we call her Flower.

And if that's not different enough, we have all sorts of unique names in the family....Blaceton, Presley, Skyler, Ava, Lila, Jackson, Kaden, CheyAnn, Taya, Tabor, Trista. I can't even remember them all.......

What is in a name, that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet ~ Shakespeare