"Augusta Marie..."

  Years ago, when I was a stay-at-home mom and needed an outlet, I decided to collect names. I was going to write a book.  A baby name book or maybe just a book on old first names. I bought a couple baby name books and highlighted the names  I already collected.  In 1992, I didn’t have the luxury of the internet, so I searched through newspapers, phone books and yearbooks. The TV Guide was also a great source of information. The best place for old names was the obituaries. I enjoyed my new hobby and was serious about putting it together for a book. I think I had more than 70.000 names before I stopped and started on something else.

  Old names are great. The name, Mabel, made a comeback when used on the TV show, Mad about You. They named their baby Mabel, to the dismay of friends and families. I loved it.  My sister and I used to play “Ethel and Mabel” in the bath tub when we were little. I’m not too fond of Gwenyth Paltrow naming her son Moses, even though that is a pretty old name. Baby Moses….Nope, don’t like that. Didn’t like Apple either. I wonder if she would name her Apple again?  If she would have had twins, I would have voted for Apple and Dumpling…or Apple and Pie….or Apple and Strudel…. I guess I should stop now.

     I know I wouldn’t give my daughter her middle name again. Lynn. She hates that name. She thought Alexandra Rose had a good ring to it. She’s right. Lynn is an easy, common middle name. My middle name is Lynn. Vickie Lynn. I was adopted at birth and my mom told me that the name Deborah Lee was my name at birth. Debbie. I was always confused as a Debbie or a Cindy growing up. I don’t know why. I had a common face. A common Debbie or Cindy face.  My mom went on to tell me that she called me Vickie Lynn because she had a baby doll when she was little named Vickie Lynn. Seriously, a baby doll named Vickie Lynn? What the hell was wrong with her?

 Well, I should consider the alternative. I was almost called Augusta Marie. Augusta. I could just imagine my mom stepping out on the front porch to yell for me to come home. “Augusta……Augusta……” And when I was bad, the middle name would be added as we all know. I don’t know how I feel about Augusta. I think it would have been really cool to be called Gus as a girl or even Gussie. My great-great aunt was Augusta Marie and they called her Aggie…That wouldn’t have been so bad. But,I  think Aunt Aggie was a lush. So, hey, let’s name your child after her…I guess I’m just not a fan of Vickie Lynn. If I had a choice, I would pick Maggie. It’s my favorite name. I don’t know why.

 Well, after doing some research on “Vickie”, it seems that it was a pretty popular name between 1950 and 1960.  Vickie is a variant of  “Victoria,” which means, “victory.”  Wow. That’s a surprise. In the 1950′s Vickie was #61 in popularity, with 71,966 Vickie’s named during that decade.  In 1960 alone, the Social Security database lists that 107 Vickie’s were born in West Virginia. They were all spelled different ways, however.

There aren’t very many famous Vickie’s out there. There is Vicki Lawrence, Vickie Lynn Hogan, aka Anna Nicole Smith and my favorite,  Miss Vicki, who married the weird-0, Tiny Tim.

  Miss Vicki was only 17 years old, when she married Tiny Tim on the Tonight Show in December, 1969. It was watched by over 40 million viewers.(They later had a baby named Tulip Victoria) The next day and for weeks afterwards, I had to endure being called, “Miss Vicki.” Hell, I still have a classmate that calls me that.  I hated having that name during that time. “Hey, Miss Vickie, where’s Tiny?”  Not fun.

I thought this was a grand name

 I guess there could be worse names. When I was in high school, I used to tell my friends I was going to name my first born Quincy Bozo. I was teasing, of course. But, I still remember that name. Did name a guinea pig that, though. Loved that rodent. There is a little boy in our community named Coleman Heater. I mean, seriously. There is also a boy named Hunner, because his mom didn’t know there was a “t” in there, for Hunter. Say the name a couple of times. I guess you could understand the mistake. Or not.

 First impressions are really important in life. Don’t name your kid Rain Mann…. or Ima Horr….. or Luke Skye Walker… or Emma Roid….Fanny Whiffer…..or Holly Wood….or Candy Kaine……or Brock Lee….or Roxanne Gravel….

or Vickie Lynn

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