What's in a Name?

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose,

By any other name would smell as sweet."

- Romeo & Juliet

Tiffany

Tiffany. It is a bold and elegant name, a name so unlike me. When heard, it paints a picture of a dark, stormy night, when lightning lights up the sky for all to see, glorious and daunting. Yet, it can always create an image of a ribbon flowing elegantly in the wind, dancing lightly. It means Manifestation of God - Divine Manifestation - yet I am neither religious nor special in any way. I’m just a girl on the street you walk past without giving a second thought. A name derived from the Ancient Greek Theophania, it is a name that does not represent me well. Yet, when people call my name, it sounds natural, it sounds like me.

When my name is written, I always thought it looked awkward, how the ‘i’ always looked crushed between the towering ‘T’ and ‘F.’ When someone whose mother language isn’t English says my name, they elongate the ‘I,’ which makes it sound like a ‘ee.’ When that happens, my name no longer sounds bold and elegant, but more like a beautiful note on a violin gone wrong.

When asked what color my name could be, I think of a dark, navy blue color tinged with silver is the color I imagine with my name. It is dark and mysterious, and is not easily spotted in a mass of colors, and mysterious like the gods. Though it may not seem so, the colors represent both my name and me. 

My name doesn’t have much of a history. My parents had simply picked up a name book, and chose between Stephanie, Sabrina, and Tiffany. But out of all those, my father chose Tiffany because of the jewelry Tiffany & Co. “I chose it because it was elegant and beautiful,” he had said. I used to wish I had another name, but when I think of the other names I could have gotten, like Sabrina or Stephanie, I am grateful that I had been chosen the name Tiffany. 

Though I may not be elegant nor bold, beautiful or special, I am still me, and no other name would fit me as perfectly as Tiffany.