A short essay by Ann is an example of a woman unhappy with her name, and gives a sense of what the reader can find in Waugaman's fascinating book: "I have always hated my name.  I see it as being plain, ordi­nary and bor­ing.  I did not have the great­est rela­tion­ship with my mother, so I have never been happy with the idea of hav­ing her name.  At this point, I feel rather neu­tral about my name.  It has never encour­aged me to be like some other Ann.  It's just who I am.  I have never had a nick­name, nor been called any­thing but Ann."

Or there's Nelle, on the happier side of the names ledger, "My real name is Ellen. I was named for my mother Susan Ellen, who was named for her mother Emily Ellen. My grand­dad always called me his 'Lit­tle Nelle'.  'Nelle' stuck and I've been Nelle ever since. I like it that way. 'Nelle' takes me back to my ear­li­est child­hood mem­o­ries, even though I am now 85. 'Nelle' is 'Ellen' spelled backwards!"

Waugaman, whose degree is in medieval French literature, became interested in names due to a chance encounter following the publication of her first book, a children's book, Follow Your Dreams: The Story of Alberto Santos-Dumont, an early, Brazilian, pioneer of aviation. The Brazilian government awarded her a prize for this book. At a reception, she mistook someone's name that she thought was June, but it was Joy.

Waugaman remarked, "I bet you have a lot of stories to do with your name."

"Yes, but not for publication," Joy replied.

"The proverbial light bulb went off and I started wondering what women would have to say if you asked them to write anything they wanted about their given names. What they had to say created Women, Their Names, & the Stories They Tell."

Finding women to contribute was daunting.

"Because discussing your name brings up such personal issues, it was not easy to find essayists," Waugaman told me. "Internet queries were almost totally futile.  Most of the essays came from word of mouth--friends of friends of friends, like the ripples from a pebble tossed into a pond. Women are good at linking with one another. I even got essays from Europeans and Africans. We do, indeed, live in a new global age."

In one ironic instance, she had to go to the patriarchy to reach women.

"I had the greatest difficulty getting the Native American essays. I managed to contact a chief who deemed the project worthy and put me in touch with a female elder, who agreed to participate because she wanted the world to know 'what we had'. Because of the orchestrated shattering of their culture, Native Americans are struggling desperately not to lose it. Of all the essayists, they expressed the most complex, multidimensional, sense of identity through their names.  With our busy work-a-day lives, we forget to maintain balance: we tend to dart from one thing to the next, forgetting the big picture. Native Americans are reminded of the balance of life through the multiple dimensions of their names."

I commented to Waugaman that I thought names were like hair. People with straight hair put them in curlers. Those with curly hair use relaxers and irons.

"I don't think you can generalize about how women feel about their names," Waugaman responded. "Individuals grow and change, which affects how they feel about their names and identity. For example, women with unusual names described frustration with not being able to find associations for their names as they were growing up; but most liked their unusual names as adults. They grew into their names. However, there was also the essayist who realized as a child that her unique name made her special. Every individual is different. The only name I encountered in the essays that seemed to entail a burden was the name 'Dolores', which means sorrow. Even with this name, the reactions of the two women with it were entirely different. One embraced the name as a symbol of her lost culture and felt the name had increased her empathy. The other was chagrined by it when she considered the names given to her older siblings--she was the youngest and got what was left, so to speak. 

"Women need stories for their names. If they have stories, women with names that might be considered problematic overcome childhood teasing and eventually make peace with the name. Some women are very imaginative in creating stories for their names--meaning for their names--which help them bond with their names in ways women without stories cannot. Other women seek out as many associations for their names as possible, tracing the name and associations to it throughout the world's religions, for example. Finding as many different stories, associations, and connections as possible through the name is an invitation offered in the book.

"The individual can make whatever she wants of her name--it can have a wealth of associations to family, history, literature, philosophy, science, nature--whatever necessary to create a complete sense of self. As long as a name is a source of growth, it can provide inspiration and solace."

I wondered whether a woman's feelings about a name are reflective of one's overall feeling of self.

"I agree," said Waugaman. "Many of the essays are about growing into the given name. In general, I don't think a name is a cause of discontent unless the name has negative associations that cannot be overcome by positive stories/associations collected for the name. Only a couple of essays suggest a name can be a cause of discontent. In one essay, an adolescent is told her father named her and her name is probably that of one of his mistresses. The mother's intent was probably to make the adolescent side with her mother, but the result was that the adolescent's name, with this negative association, made her feel she did not belong in the family. This feeling of exclusion was exacerbated by the fact her brother had a family name. She not only had a name with no family history, but also a name with anti-family associations. If families do not give the individual stories about her name, she needs to create her own stories. Many women describe that process. It's very inspiring. In the case of this adolescent, now a young adult, I gave her new ways to explore the meaning of her name so that she could find some positive associations and create some inspiring stories for the name."

"The other essay that comes to mind is that of Dolores, who received the name of the weeping Madonna, when all the older daughters got names like Mary, Regina, etc. But once again, one woman named Dolores felt very passionately about her name--that it had given her a depth of character she might not otherwise have attained.

 "A couple of essayists complained that their names were old fashioned but the essayists adjusted to them. A couple of women complained because their names were only one syllable and, therefore, they seemed insubstantial. These women didn't adjust well to the names, which, in addition to being short, either had no family story or a negative family story.

"The key for overcoming discontent with a name is collecting more positive than negative associations and stories for it. This is another invitation in the book--to find as many associations for your name in as many dimensions as possible, to realize that we are all have the same hopes and dreams, that we are all simply branches on the tree of humanity."