How Rowena got her name

It took me a long time to find out how and why I was named Rowena. I asked my father when I was about 25. He didn’t really remember. I am the fifth child. My mother wasn’t alive to remember. The older kids are named John, Hope, Pamela and William. I know that the oldest 3 kids got to name Billy: they named him for an old beloved pony that belonged to Bob Peckham down the street.

My father went to his files to search for the answer to my question. I get asked pretty often how I got my name. Some people think I picked it myself after unloading a dull name. I tell them I’ve had it all my life. What my father turns up in his ‘R’ file is the hospital menu that my mother checked off everything on the day I was born. I was born at lunchtime on a Saturday. She missed 2 meals on my account and must have been ravenous. Still, that morsel did not answer my question.

I asked both of my older sisters what they remembered. First, I was supposed to be a boy so they only had boys names picked out. My father says you need a baby around at least 2 days to know what to name it. Both sisters said our parents told the older 4 kids that they could name me, too. Pam picked out the name Mrs. Spooner. All 4 kids agreed upon it. Mrs. Spooner was our beloved friend and kindergarten teacher. Well, my father told my brothers and sisters that I could not possibly be named Mrs. Spooner, that you couldn’t call a child Mrs.; it had to be a first name. This presented a problem. No one could settle on an agreeable name. People think I’m named for the character in Ivanhoe. I wasn’t. Apparently, my family worked their way up to the Rs in the baby name book. On the 10th day after I was born I was still without a name. Dr. Brownell called the house and told my parents I needed to be named pronto or I’d be known as Baby M forever more.

So that’s how I was named Rowena. It’s highly unlikely I’ll ever share my name with a hurricane. They don’t usually get up to the Rs in hurricane naming land.