Naming Yourself

Yesterday, I reported discovering the source of a family name. Along the way, another realization. My grandmother, at birthdays or other "light" times, would say a strange (to me) thing: "I am a centennial baby!" Light, but totally serious. Family loyalty and Christian faith were basics, then her self-designation.

Born in America's centennial year, 1876, she chose that for a self-definition. She could have called herself the child of a Civil War survivor, a child of Reconstruction, a child of "wild west" chaos in the Big Thicket of East Texas, baby daughter number four of a farmer, the prettiest girl in Moscow, Texas, or the doctor's wife. All true! But, she liked Centennial Baby.

Always a Christian first, it then meant to her: patriotic, optimistic, totally hard-working, great-things-to-accomplish. She wasn't defined by living in a tiny town, she went on to graduate from Sam Houston in Huntsville in 1897. She taught, raised children, rolled on past 93, saying with a light grin and a wink: "I'm a centennial baby!"

Naming yourself means you choose. You can just fit in, let someone else name you, then cut yourself down to fit their name, or you can aim high. And the choice shows first in how you name yourself.