What's in a name?

Nothing much, really.  After all, as somebody once said (or wrote), a rose by any other name would simply pong the same.  Yes, all right, clever clogs.  I know it was Shakespeare who gave Juliet the line, "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet".  Of course, that's quite true: the name of the flower has no effect on the scent.  Except...

Just imagine that you have in your garden a prickly shrub which bears red flowers (or pink or yellow).  This plant is called hogspittle.  Maybe it's just me, but changing the name from rose to hogspittle rather puts me off.  I just can't imagine a flower with the name hogspittle as being sweet smelling.

I'm sure I'm not alone - indeed, I know I'm not - in assigning certain traits of character to people according to their names.  Very often this happens because of characteristics of the first person we knew by that name.  For example, I was at school with a rather pugnacious boy called Roderick.  As a result, all my adult life I have tended to give a wide berth to anybody pf that name.  Probably quite unfairly!

On the other hand, when I was about 10 I had a crush on a cousin called Beverley, then later there was a girl called Jennifer lived next door.  Had she and her family not moved away I might have become close to her.  But any girls (or women) called Beverley of Jennifer are off to a good start as far as I am concerned.

Dawn is another name I find attractive, simply because the first Dawn I ever knew was good looking, petite and with long, dark hair.  (Somehow dark hair and the name Dawn seem a contradiction, but there you are.)  The Old Bat, on the other hand, knew a Dawn at school and disliked her, so...

By a strange coincidence I have heard from both a Beverley and a Jenny in the last few days.  My cousin Beverley rang to tell me of the death of an uncle.  During our conversation I told her of my crush, which she found highly amusing.  Then I had a call to tell me that Jenny's husband Ivan had died.  Strangely, Ivan had been suffering much the same symptoms as the Old Bat when I first met him and Jenny a few years ago.  He was put through the same tests but the final diagnosis was different.  He had already gone blind and became pretty much paralysed.  His death will be a huge relief to both himself and to Jenny.

I shall try to get to Uncle Geoff's funeral but I am not close enough to Jenny to bother with Ivan's.

~~~~~

There is plenty of blossom on the top pear tree this year.  I just hope the jackdaws leave us some fruit!