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September 9, 2022
Ding! You’ve Got a New Name
Day nine of the Refresh the Soul 30-day writing challenge
Day 9 prompt: Write about your name.
I hated my given name growing up. Ellen Theresa McFadden.
Okay, I loved my middle and last name but detested my first name. Ya know, the one everyone calls you by.
It wasn’t cute. It was “old” sounding. Boys called me “Allen” or “Helen.” As if those names were worse than “Ellen.”
When I went shopping with my friends, we would browse the personalized name gifts. Bookmarks. Keychains. Nameplates. Never an “Ellen” in sight. I felt left out.
Mind you, this was before Ellen DeGeneres rocked the name and even added our name to cool shirts, coffee mugs, and even underwear.
By the time she was famous, I had already taken things into my own hands. by changing my name. Well, not officially, but online, so that’s pretty close.
In the mid-1990s, I got my first desktop computer and set up my first non-school email account. AOL, baby.
Do you hear that?
You’ve got mail! dinging in the background.
I still remember sitting at my ginormous computer deciding on an AOL username/email. Ellie. It’s cuter. I can’t go into chatrooms with the name “Ellen.” So I decided on Ellie73.
As an introvert who was attending an all-women's college, meeting people online was a more comfortable existence. And everyone called me Ellie, not Ellen. Of course, that world was separate from my physical world, where family and friends still used my name.
Until my online world intertwined with my physical. I met a guy who I ended up dating, moving in with, and marrying (and eventually divorcing, but that’s a whole different story). He lived three hours away, so I moved in with him, starting a new life with new friends who all called me “Ellie.”
