Miscellaneous: Colin

The name Colin is fairly popular in the United States today. It wasn't so when I was a child, in the 1960s. I was teased at school, called Colleen, called a girl. On those rotating drugstore racks selling bicycle license plates for kids, there was never a Colin.

None of this bothered me much, but I did grow up thinking my name was rare, so that, even now, I notice the name when it pops up. Recently in San Francisco I was a little pleased to find there's a street there with my name on it--Colin Place. It's only an alley, and one with no public access at that. But it's got my name on it.

[Update: Strangely, two days later I walked into a wine shop in San Francisco and the first thing I saw, literally, was a bottle of Champagne with my name on it--a producer I had never heard of before.]

Miscellaneous: New Family Member--Milo the Cat (March 24, 2012)

We acquired a cat about three months ago. The local shelter was giving them away, already neutered, all shots and papers complete, microchipped. They had too many to take care of. Despite having grown up with two cats in the house as a child, I wasn't in favor of the idea, but I was overruled.

As cats go, he's an amiable fellow that likes to sleep at the foot of a warm bed--although he has a habit of suddenly nipping at a hand or foot when you least expect it. I suggested we call him Mr. Hyde....

Why am I writing about Milo now? Because he acquired his name only yesterday. One of my son's friends declared the cat "Milo," and we all liked it--which is remarkable, because for the past three months no one could agree on what to call him. I had settled into a pattern of referring to him as "the cat" and just saying "Kittie!" when calling him to come in out of the cold. My mother was calling him "No name." Now, he is Milo. So, I welcome Milo to the family. Until he had an agreed-upon name, he didn't quite seem official.

Miscellaneous: Colin

There are too many people named Colin in the US these days. When I was a child, Colin was an unusual name here. I was teased. Kids called me a girl, saying my name was "Colleen." They had never heard the name Colin.

In my birth year of 1960, only 7% of names given to boys in the US were more uncommon, according to a Facebook application that rates your parents on the originality of the name they gave you; mine got an A+. Getting teased was the downside--and there was never a "Colin" on the racks of those little license plates for bicycles with first names on them. The upside was that when I heard or saw the name Colin, it almost always belonged to me. Now, men and boys named Colin pop up all over the place--which can be confusing.