Did you get teased because your name was in a song?  Or because it rhymed with some other obnoxious word?

There was on song with my name in it, and one doll that had my name.  But, except upon occasion, I really wasn't teased.  I often thought it was because the other school kids didn't really like me well enough to tease me.  Isn't that weird?  I think it is true, though.  They had to adore you or hate you for you to be the brunt of their jokes. 

My mom called me Cassie Cookie after a cartoon drawing in the Highlights magazine.  She was the baby girl in the Cookie family. She also called me Dotter and herself Mud.  I think it is Dutch/German...just like men were name after their dads....Johnsson...women were named after dad's, too, so their last name would have been Johnsdotter...Mud was short for Mudder (mother).

My dad called me Cathy Wathy.  He called my younger brother Jonny Ponny and my older brother Randy Pandy.  He did it with love, but it was always goofy sounding to me.

My little brother would call me Catrina a lot, and my older brother called me Catarina. I often wondered if it is because he could not spell Catrina, or if indeed it was the spanish influence of our area!

I started leaving off Cathy when in my early 20's...did not feel like me...and started using Catherine which felt more like who I wanted to be.  Later, while working for another attorney, the secretaries could not read what I wrote in faxes as only the Cat part would show up instead of my full name...so they started calling me Cat.  That stuck.

So, no matter the name, it's a label of the times, and a reflection of how we wish to be remembered by our peers and family and friends.

I wonder who I will be next year?????