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The Name Game
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: August 2024
Art by Norma Jean Zahner
There are things named after people and people named after things.
My mother, an obstetrics R.N., came home with tales of parents desperate for a unique baby name.
Some chose cool-sounding names/words, things overheard in their immediate environment. They fell in love with the sound of medical terms, not knowing the meaning.
The all-time winner was Placenta (not kidding). Still, if you didn’t know its definition, the word’s lyrical resonance could trump its meaning. And often did. Poor Placenta. She had to have a rough-go at recess.
There are oodles of name stories in the world. A friend told me about her family’s late uncle, Cuba Maine. The USS Maine sank in Havana in 1898, setting-off the Spanish American War. Cuba Maine’s ancestor went down with the ship, but the family kept his memory and the event alive.
After you roll Cuba Maine around in your mouth a few times, it begins to feel legit.
I was born August 9, the date of the second nuclear bomb-drop that ended WWII.
And, years later, on the infamous August 9, Nixon resigned. Thank goodness I wasn’t named Nagasaki Donna. Or worse yet, Milhous Rhodes. There’s no amount of rolling-around one’s tongue to make those names poetic.
Without benefit of segue, let’s move from war to vegans. Many vegans assume a nickname, often associated with nature. River Phoenix, for example. My late husband, Robert (aka Bobbo and a carnivore to his dying day) and I visited a vegan cooking school in Tavares, Florida. Don’t ask me why.
A young woman met us at the gate. She introduced herself as Rainbow. I shook hands and said. “I’m Donna and this is my husband, Bobbo.”
Bobbo said, “If I am Bobbo and you are Rainbow, we must be related.”
I chortled. As for Rainbow – crickets.
In fact, our jokes belly-upped all afternoon. We decided veganism wasn’t for us. There must be an undiscovered gland in human bodies that regulates laughing. It goes dormant if you don’t eat things with feathers, scales, or feet.
It just occurred to me. Maybe I knew Rainbow before she became vegan. Now it’s like I never saw herbivore.
