Bernadette

I guess this should have been one of my early choices when I decided to use song titles, but I didn't think of it until this afternoon. I had two songs cued up when this one popped into my head and wouldn't go away. Thank you, Four Tops, for that!

When I was young, I hated my name. I suppose no kid wants to be different. None of my classmates had heard my name before; even teachers called me Brenda or Bernadine. (Oddly, I had one college professor who insisted on calling me Michelle, even after I had corrected him numerous times. I asked him why, and he said, "I don't know. You just look like a Michelle.") By the time I got into high school, the actress Bernadette Peters was famous, so people would make reference to her. More rarely, someone would mention St. Bernadette. Even less often, upon hearing my name people would launch into the song by The Four Tops. I hadn't heard that song, so usually I didn't know what they were talking about. Of course, I know it now, and I would say that of the three references above, that's the one I prefer.

As I got older, I realized that being different was a way of being special, and I grew to love my name. Once, shortly after I moved to Jacksonville, I was waiting in a room with several other people for a job interview. The assistant came in and said my name. Two of us stood up. Not having met many Bernadettes in my life, I was as surprised as I'm sure the "other one" was. I like having a name that's different; I sometimes go by Bern, but only among friends. When I meet someone and they ask what I like to be called or if I go by something shorter, I always say I like to be called Bernadette. Although I didn't believe it when I was young, now I think one of the best things a parent can do for a kid is to give him or her a unique name. The caveat, I suppose, is that there's a fine line between unique and weird. And I'll just leave it there.