I've been wrestling lately with the fact that I named my son a double name, not only with myself but with others. Panic first struck me about two months after he was born when I realized that most of our close family members were calling him "JT" and not his full name. If I couldn't get his aunts and uncles to call him Jason Thomas, then how in the world would kindergarten children do it? I seriously considered changing it in that moment to Thomas. But, I didn't....and I've grown to love it, as well as loathe it when people scoff at it. Most recently, an acquaintance looked at me in astonishment when I called my son by his double name. "You actually call him by both names? I'm exhausted just listening to you," she groused. Every one knows not to harass the baby cub in front of the momma cub without fear of getting your face ripped off. After I made a mental note to put her on "the list," I gave her my nice Southern smile and remembered Shakespeare's famous sonnet in
Romeo and Juliet:
'Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,
And for that name which is no part of thee
Take all myself.
And, if the high road doesn't work for 'em, they can go suck an egg!
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