What’s in a Name?

Aren’t baby name books fun to read? Shannon and I used to pour through them when my mom was pregnant with Russ, Craig, and Ty. Just for shiggles.

Not that we’re trying, but Tanner and I have always loved the name “Sidney” for a girl (“Sidney Lynn”, to carry on his family’s three generation tradition of giving  the middles names of Lee, Lane, and Lynn. Don’t even think of copying us either).  So while burning time on the internet today, I looked up the meaning. It means, “A city in Australia.”

No duh.

Tanner means, “a man who tans hides.” His middle name, Lee, comes from Old English “leah“, meaning “meadow”. I like to think his name means “Man Who Tans Hides in Meadow.”

Concieted person that I am, of course I researched my name in depth. According to behindthename.com,

AMANDA

Gender: Feminine

Usage: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Finnish

Pronounced: ə-MAN-də (English), ah-MAHN-dah (Spanish, Italian)  [key] 
Created in the 17th century by the playwright Colley Cibber, who based it on Latin amanda meaning “lovable, worthy of love”. It came into regular use during the 19th century.

Apparently Cibber wasn’t terribly successful, or popular, within his lifetime.

 

He wrote some plays for performance by his own company at Drury Lane, and adapted many more…receiving frequent criticism for his “miserable mutilation” (Robert Lowe) of “hapless Shakespeare, and crucify’d Molière” (Alexander Pope). He regarded himself as first and foremost an actor and had great popular success in comical fop parts, while as a tragic actor he was persistent but much ridiculed….he was frequently accused of tasteless theatrical productions, social and political opportunism…and shady business methods. He rose to herostratic fame when he became the chief target, the head Dunce, of Alexander Pope’s satirical poem The Dunciad. Cibber’s poetical work was ridiculed in his time, and has been remembered only for being bad.

 

His invention, my name, Amanda, first appears in his play, Love’s Last Shift.

The central action of Love’s Last Shift is a celebration of the power of a good woman, Amanda, to reform a rakish husband, Loveless, by means of sweet patience and a daring bed-trick. She masquerades as a prostitue….and seduces Loveless without being recognized by him, and then confronts him with logical argument. Since he did enjoy the night with her while taking her for a stranger, it has been proved that a wife can be as good in bed as an illicit mistress. Loveless is convinced…The play was a great box-office success and was for a time the talk of the town, in both a positive and a negative sense. Some contemporaries regarded it as moving and amusing, others as a sentimental tear-jerker, incongruously interspersed with sexually explicit  restoration comedy jokes and semi-nude bedroom scenes.

In short, my name was invented for a wife who plays a hooker to dispell the Feminine Virtue myth.
I wonder how much of this my parents knew before settling on my monkier….