It's All Relative

My family is full of creative people. Yeah, not so much.

We aren't the most clever people when it comes to naming our children. It's gotten to a point where we now have to call people by their first AND last names, and sometimes tack on the "Jr" or "Sr" to boot! Pitiful.

My father is Larry. So is my brother. Jr & Sr. Their first name is David. My grandfather was David Luther. Right there we've used David 3 times and Larry twice. But it didn't stop there. My brother's oldest is David. And my oldest's middle name is David. Wow.

(Okay, right now people are noticing that my parents are cruel. Indeed, they named me and my brother Larry & Lori. And no, we're not twins. Embarrassing. But more on my name fate later.)

Back to the Larrys. My dad has a cousin. She married a Larry. So growing up we had Big Larry (dad), Little Larry (brother) and Fat Larry (cousin - aren't we a nice family?). But wait...there's more! My aunt decided to get married about 14 years ago...to a Larry. And his oldest son is a Jr. So we have 5 Larrys getting together every stinking holiday.

My grandmother is Mary. So is my niece. Plus 2 cousins (mother and daughter). I have an aunt and a cousin named Linda.

And then there's me. Lorene Hope. Yuck. Lorene is my grandmother's middle name. Hope is my mother's middle name. Could've been worse. Could've been Mary Myrtle. Stop laughing.

This is just my dad's side of the family. My mother's is just as bad, and everyone seems to have someone else's name. Did I mention we have a cousin named David? No? Well, it's hard to keep track of it all.

This is why my children don't have rhyming names and we don't have a Jr. Too confusing. We named both boys after men we loved and respected, but thankfully men we don't see once a month - so we can call our children by their names and no one is confused. Except the children. They haven't been called by their names since they were babies. Luckily we don't have any other Spankys or Baby Boys, so we're good.