AI Artwork by: The Pumpkin Empress

WP wants to know what my name means-it’s history.

My name is Anita. Nobody cares what it means or where it came from. Come on. Most people don’t even pronounce it correctly- I get called “uh-nee-duh” instead of Ah-nee-tah which sounds graceful and pretty. So I can’t imagine that anyone would care about the origins of  a name that gets butchered every time someone says it.

However the story about how I was named Anita is both a cautionary tale and a funny one.

My Mom named me after her best friend, Anita and then she and Anita had a falling out.

It was such a major falling out that my Mom stopped calling me Anita years ago and has been calling me Marie – which is my middle name since then. My Dad’s family seemed to prefer the name Marie, so they called me that. My Mom’s family knew Anita and they cared about her and I think that when she and my Mom parted ways it hurt them because they still call me Anita.

So here’s the skinny.

If you have a kid and you are inclined to name them after your bestie- don’t do it.

If you are really driven to go ahead and do that, give your kid a great middle name.

I mean just as meaningful as the first name- you just don’t know.

It may turn out to be their first name in the long run.