What's in a name?

I have a very simple name.  It has only one syllable and only three letters.  It's pretty straightforward.  No need to fancy it up.  It's spelled "A-n-n".  Don't try to add an "e" on the end.  It just doesn't work.  Everyone knows that odd numbered items work better aesthetically.  Ask any retail display person.  They always group things in odd numbers.

Anyway, my parents didn't give me or my sister a middle name.  We had a first name and a last name.  That seemed plenty enough to them. It covered all the bases without being pretentious or trying to put on airs.  So, when I got my coveted driver's license, the State of Louisiana had a remedy for people like me - simple, honest, no middle name people like me.  They simply made a notation on my driver's license that I didn't have a middle name or initial.

Now, you have to understand, that I got my driver's license way back in 1960.  My parents not only didn't believe in middle names, they also didn't believe in charging anything or using credit cards.  And, since that was long before debit cards, check cards, or any kind of card, we carried cash or paper checks to pay for things.  In order to write a check, you needed to have a driver's license to show to the clerk in whatever store you were in when you wrote a check.  So, being a law abiding citizen, I always had my driver's license with me.

One day, I was in a store, wrote a check, and produced my driver's license for the lady behind the counter.  She took one look at my license and said, "Oh my, that is the most beautiful name I have ever seen."  And, then, with a look of complete and utter joy, she pronounced my name out loud.  She said it slowly, phonetically, and with feeling, "Ann No-nay Lee-oh-ny". And, then, with a look that fell somewhere between pleasure and curiosity, she asked me, "Is that Hawaiian?"  With a straight face I said, "No, it's not Hawaiian.  It means I don't have a middle name."  The State of Louisiana had strangely chosen not to use the more conventional "NMI" for "no middle initial", but, instead they had typed out my name this way: "Ann None Leone".  Why they didn't put "Ann (none) Leone" I will never know.  But, for one brief moment, the lady behind the counter and I went to a wonderful place called virtual Hawaii, and, there, I had a magical, musical name.  But, when we came back to reality, I still had my simple, unpretentious one syllable, three lettered name.

The clerk looked like she had been taken in by a con artist, and, strangely, I felt diminished in some small way.  But, I like my name.  There aren't many of us named "Ann".  And, other than some references to Little Orphan Annie or Annie Oakley, I have done pretty well with my simple name.  Well, my husband has managed to come up with a nickname for me.  Since I do have a driver's license, naturally I drive a car.  And I have a tendency to drive just a weensy bit too fast at times.  He calls me "Annie Granatelli" which is a play on the name of Andy Granatelli, the race car driver.

So, whether it's Ann No-nay Lee-oh-ny or Annie Granatelli, I was and will always be just simply Ann.  Unpretentious and occasionally living in the virtual world.