“What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet…..”'
The Bard was right when he penned that. And if I'm remembering sophomore year literature correctly, that whole thing was about Romeo and Juliet falling in love, and how only their love should have mattered, not their family names.
Beautiful, ain't it?
But what about love for little furry, feathery or scaly creatures? You know -- the kind used for biology class dissection? Would you change your name to help spare them the scalpel? According to an article by the Associated Press, that's exactly what 19-year-old Jennifer Thornburg of Asheville, North Carolina did. She's legally changed her name to a web address for one of PETA's home pages against animal cruelty.
But Rochelle, you say -- is that really a bad thing? Think about it: You're Jennifer's parents. Nineteen years ago, you combed over every baby book to find a meaningful name. Maybe you promised the now sainted Gramma that you'd name the baby after her. Or you found out that you were finally having the baby girl you always dreamed of, and you painted her bedroom pink and outfitted it with a frilly canopy bed, and lovingly sprawled those wonderful girly block letters on her wall to spell J-E-N-N-I-F-E-R....
.....and now, after nineteen years, you must now refer to your darling daughter as CutoutDissection.com. Actually, according to the article, she prefers Cutout.
During my wanna-be-a-hippie days, I would have thought that this was the coolest thing EVER. Not so much anymore. Responsible Parent things come to my mind -- at the very least, things like Where does the first name start and the last name begin? Is the dot in dot com a middle name or a middle initial? If she gets married, will she be Mrs. CutoutDissection.com-Smith?
I don't know, Cutout's probably the same old Jennifer; and my guess is that her parents probably understand Shakespeare's rose sentiment on a level that I'll never quite get to......unless GG's got plans to change her name someday too.
Here’s The PETA interview with Cutout, if you’d like to check it out. http://tinyurl.com/3zz2uu