What is in a name

When you have as many kids and animals as we do you start to run out of names.

I will say to our credit everyone does have a name, although admittedly there are a few birds who are a bit ambiguous, every mammal has a name.

The other day I asked Gioconda to name all the cats, she couldn't. She forgot some of the most obvious, Patches who has lived with her over the last 22 (YES 22) years- she forgot Patches- who lives in where I have no idea but gets fed every morning on the roof of the pool room.

Patches is the only animal who has a - what I would call - a non-human name. We don't have Fluffy or Stinky or Sparkie- we have Henri Pierre, Peter Thomas, Pinnter Anthony and Zoe Agentina- all our animals have middle names. That is all our animals EXCEPT for Patches and a couple of finches.

Sometimes I look at my daughters and wonder if I named them the right name. I mean, I would HATE to be a Suzy- or even a Monica-I can't imagine being anything but Jody- for a really long time in my life it was the only thing I was absolutely certain- my name was and more importantly should be Jody. I feel as though their names are right - and although hope they feel the same- my greater hope there will be more - much more-my daughters will be certain.

Gioconda has hard a tough time with her name. People don't say it right, as a kid she could never get one of those little license plates with your name - as amazing as it might sound there was no GIOCONDA between GAIL and GLORIA.

There is a book called "The Yearling" in which the main character - a boy- is named Jody- spelled with a Y. My mother tells me she loved the book- and this was a factor in her naming me Jody-but what is somewhat unclear is why she named her daughter after a male character in a book...

I consider myself fortunate she wasn't as fond of The Archie comics- because I could have been Veronica- or Betty.

I think my daughters know their names when I call them- but really who can tell. I think Henri Pierre knows his name too- but its hard for me to know as he speaks french and my daughters speak spanish...and I just speak english.