My Name

Last week I had to write a paper for my English Class about my name. How my parents picked it out and what it means. I really like the story of my name, so I wanted to share a little piece of me =]

A Last Minute Change: The Story of My Name

It was late November of 1987 when my parents found out that they were having a second child. My dad had always wanted a little boy, and a few months later the doctor told my parents that he thought by the signs of my mom’s pregnancy his wish for a boy was coming true. For my parent’s picking a boy name was very simple, and soon it was decided that I would be named Thomas Foster, after my Dad’s two granddads. My dad was on cloud nine with the possibility of having a boy, but my Mom wanted to pick out a girl’s name just in case. There were two things that my mom knew for sure she wanted in a girl’s name. She wanted it to have the same initials as her, T.D.S. and she wanted the middle name to be Dawn. My older sister has my mom’s maiden name Shannon as her middle name, so she wanted to pass on her initials to me. With my mom’s due date drawing near she sought my dad’s approval on many first names, but he wasn’t a fan of any that she liked.

On August 31st of 1988 at 6:42 A.M. my mom gave birth to her second child, and to much dismay of my dad it was a little girl. In an interview with my dad he stated “The doctor came out and told me that I had another little girl, and I responded ‘Are you sure?’ The doctor laughed and said ‘I’ve been doing this for quite a while.’” For the first few hours of my life I was still unnamed because they couldn’t decide on one name for me. In an interview my dad said “Your mom suggested Tiffany Dawn and I loved it, so you became Tiffany Dawn.” My dad is unsure of where my mom came up with Tiffany, but I do know that Dawn came from one of her cousins.

I haven’t always loved my name though, when I was younger I always wanted to be named something different, because Tiffany was so uncommon. Today though is different. As I grew up I realized that being uncommon is certainly better than having the same name as many other girls in my class. My mom passed away twelve years ago, so the reason for Tiffany will always be unknown, but I am very thankful that I am blessed with having her initials, and I hope to one day carry on the tradition of passing on my initials.

When researching my names on the internet, ThinkBabyNames.com said that Tiffany means “revelation of God”, and audioenglish.net says that Dawn means “the first light of day” (thinkbabynames.com; audioenglish.net). I have to admit that with those two meanings I am very proud of my name and love it dearly.

I would have to say that after hearing the story of how I got my name, and doing the research on what my name means I have come to appreciate and love my name more than I ever have and I have to admit that my parents did a wonderful job of naming me.