I am so pleased and honored to announce that my next book in the Gigi and Ojiji series, WHAT’S IN A NAME?, has been named a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Book!
GIGI AND OJIJI: WHAT'S IN A NAME? will be released on January 3, 2023, and is now available for preorder!
Gigi decides to go by something besides her baby name. Her given name, Geraldine, is too long to write.
Perhaps Ojiji's suggestion of Hanako, her middle name, is the right name?
It doesn't feel quite right, though. Will Gigi find the perfect name? Get the book to find out!
I was inspired to write this story, remembering my own experiences with my name and trying to find my own identity. I've always been fascinated with the etymology of names and their meanings. One’s name is such a huge part of how we present ourselves to the world and how we see ourselves.
Like Gigi, as a child, I never used my given name. Back then, everyone called me "Missy". They still do in my home town! To be honest, I never really liked that name, but at that age I didn't feel like a "Melissa". I also have a Japanese middle name, "Mari", which never felt like my own. When I asked my mom what it meant in Japanese, she told me "round", but I heard "brown". Both meanings weren't very inspiring to me (and incorrect I was to discover)!
As a student of Japanese, I learned that there are many meanings for "Mari", depending on the characters used. Some meanings are "truth", "reason", "hemp village", "love hemp". Sometimes it is written in hiragana instead of characters. At any rate, I have never felt like a "Mari".
During my freshman year of college, I decided to make a fresh start and began to introduce myself as "Melissa". I felt like a strange imposter the first few times, I did! I grew into it though. Now I can't imagine being called anything else.
Fun fact: Melissa means "honey bee" in Greek. My last name, Iwai, (pronounced like the letters, E and Y) means "rock" and "well or stream". It is written like this: 岩井 in Japanese.
My husband's name, Denis (one "n"!) is actually his middle name even though he's been called that since childhood. His first name is Gordon, which most of our friends don't know.
Our son, Jamie's given name is James, which honors his uncle and his great grandfather. His middle name, Takateru, honors another uncle, and means "shining high". Jamie now uses both names as his musical identity: James Takateru.
James Takateru just released his single, Grandfather Clock, last month, which he wrote, produced, and performed. Check it out here!
It warms my heart that Jamie decided to embrace his names, rather than starting from scratch and changing his name, as so many of his peers in high school did.
How about you? Do you know the etymology of your name(s)? Have you ever thought of changing your name{s}?