Recently I've corresponded with several friends about the meaning of our names. Most people don't know what their own names mean - do you?
I keep name books handy. Not because this is the most important thing in the world, but for four good reasons.
One, I notice that meanings are often given in the Bible, so it must be important to God.
Two, when you get to know people's stories, it comes out so very often that they had greater dignity purpose in life if they knew their name had value.
Three. I've read that people often live up to the meaning of their names, whether they know what that is or not. Some lives had taken a whole new direction when the name is changed.
Fourth, as a writer I've collected names from way-back. The sound of some intrigues me, the meaning of others. I collect unusual names that I might need some day in a work of fiction. It's even fun to make up new ones.
Points two, and three are illustrated in my own story. When I was attending school here in my home town, there were several Ruths in our school.
I can't have been 13 yet, because one morning while Mom braided my long hair, (a daily ritual until I persuaded her at 13 that I was old enough for a cut), I complained that these other Ruths were doing things that the girls in the washroom giggled laughed about as if they were bad. I was ashamed of my name.
Mom told me very emphatically, "You are named after the Ruth in the Bible, you should live your life in such a way that everyone who meets a Ruth after they have met you, will think it is a beautiful name. It's up to you to turn it into a good name."
Wow! Considering that my mother was sickly in bed or in the hospital more often than not, it was quite a speech, and it resonated with me for a long time. Some time after that I discovered that Ruth means, "compassionate," or a "beautiful friend." I liked both and adopted them for my profile.
In my early 20s I was active in a Pioneer Girls' Club in a small church in London, Ontario, two provinces to the east, doing my best to set a good example as a leader. Kathleen Chan, one of my assistant leaders moved away to the far eastern provinces of Canada. A few months later she wrote me to say that she her husband were expecting a baby if it was a girl, they were going to name her Ruth after me.
Immediately I recalled what Mom had said, but I kept quiet about this possibility. Months later we got word at the church that Kathleen had died in childbirth, but Alex had named the baby girl, who survived, Ruth.
I felt like I'd achieved a milestone. The heroine of my novel had other first names at various stages, but when I really felt I had a plot with value, I decided the very best name from a meaning viewpoint, was one that stood for compassion a beautiful friend. It may appear to some to be a self- agrandizing move, but there simply wasn't a better choice.
Furthermore, it's my way of saying, "Thanks, Mom. Ruth is the right name for me."
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