I have several friends and/or family members who are currently pregnant. So, the subject of naming a baby has swirled around me for about a month now. The comments my Aunt Hila made to me yesterday got me thinking about my name. Many years ago (in 1998 or 1999), I typed my name into a search engine and came up with this really neat website that would tell you the personality traits associated with a specific name. It was actually quite neat, and I printed a copy of it and kept it. I am sure it is now "floating" around somewhere in one of my many boxes simply labeled "memorabilia." I have tried searching Google, to see if I can find that website again, but have been unsuccessful. There are lots of results for the name Hila, though. I think the Internet is just so vast and huge, it will be hard to find that specific site again without more information. It would probably be easier for me to find my printed copy among my "memorabilia" boxes. Which will not be an easy feat, either... Maybe I'll feel like doing it, but I doubt it. I'm trying NOT to unpack more boxes. At any rate, as I started looking for this site, I did find a lot of things pertaining to my name. Other than being the plural form of some medical term (Hilum), the name is Hebrew and it means praise, crown, aura, halo, and radiance. Most commonly, the meaning of the name was "praise." However, I saw enough of the other definitions to include them. It was neat, because I'd never heard the others before. I got a magnet from a neighborhood friend when I was a kid (I still have it) and it had my name and its definition printed on it. So, from a very young age, I have been able to tell people who asked me that my name is Hebrew and it means praise. Also something I found interesting is that many of the sites I saw this morning indicate the name Hila is related to the Jewish word Hillel, which means praise. What I found interesting about it was that the new Hillel House for the University is what is going to replace my old apartment complex.
At any rate, I asked my mom last night why she named me Hila. Because she has told me numerous times that she really thought about naming me Desiree, because there had been 9 years between her first child (Ben) and her second (myself) and she had so desperately desired another baby. And yet she named me Hila. I asked her why. I asked her why she didn't name me something else and maybe wait for her next daughter that she could name Hila. She gave me the response that I was just a Hila. When she saw me, she knew that I was a Hila. She said, "Christina can't be a Hila." Which is true. Just like my Aunt Nene couldn't be a Hila in the generation before mine. But how does a parent know that when they are looking at their newborn child and deciding on a name? How much of that child's personality at that point is able to "point to" the "correct" name for that child? Anyway, just deep and ponderous musings from the Nilla :).
You want another one? Ever noticed how traffic rules are so ingrained into our minds as adults that we obey them, even when we're not driving? Example: down which side of the aisle do you push your cart in the grocery store? Me, I always stay to the right :). Like driving.
8 years ago
3 comments:
Two thoughts:
#1 Driving. Yes! And how impatient I am when waiting in a line (like being stuck in a traffic jam). Ugh! Dirty words flying all around in my brain.
Now #2...a bit better thought... At my 20th class reunion I met up with a former Jewish classmate by the name of Judy McClain. She moved to Israel and lived on a kibutz after our graduation from Cristobal High in 1971. At the reunion she told me, "Hila, I always said that, if I ever ran into you again, I would tell you what your name means." She then told me that in Israel the word "hila" meant the aura around the sun. I was so grateful to know that. It seemed so beautiful.
I got a little card one year from someone that told me what my name meant. I kept it forever, I might still have it. My name means youthful. That is pretty neat.
The meaning behind the name does not matter to me a lick. It does not influence my name choosing of this unborn child. haha.
I named my children after the biblical persons because I wanted them to remain faithful despite the pressures of the crowd. To be able to say what was true as it was with a positive light of, "with the lord all things are possible" I didn't really mean to, until we knew that #2 (hee hee) was a boy. The best part is that they are such good friends, and for the most part play very well together.
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