What's In A Name?

I was named Curtis Lloyd Lebow, after my father Curtis Carlton Lebow, and my great uncle Dr. Lloyd George Hershey. My friend Don wrote about me in his blog “moonerjohnson” and then contacted me by email to ask which name I preferred to be called, Curtis or Lloyd. He knew me in college as Lloyd and had heard that I was now going by Curtis. 

 

He had asked a tough question without realizing it. I was, and still am, Lloyd to my immediate family. This helped to keep the confusion to a minimum in our house since my dad was the real Curtis. Interesting that my sister, Loretta Paulette Lebow (Glenn), named after two Hollywood stars, Loretta Young and Paulette Goddard, was also called by her middle name although there was no competing Loretta in our family at all.  But I digress.

Someone else asked me this question recently.  I said I was comfortable with either name. People don't seem eager to accept this. Computer programs don't adapt easily to an either/or answer; and I understand people who will be working with you want to assign a name to call you.  Answering this question was easy when I was young, having been called Lloyd all my life; now it is not as cut and dried.  

Over time, being in situations (college classes, new jobs, seminars, etc.) where not everyone knows you are a "middle namer", you get called by your first name frequently and it becomes tiring to keep correcting folks. Over the years I acquiesced and I have been called both. Sometimes I was known as Curtis at work and Lloyd at home. So, that's one reason.

Then there are the personalities of the two namesakes; two men for whom I have enormous admiration and respect. You have my father: a WWII belly gunner, golden gloves boxer, perfect game bowler, golden rule follower, good humored, compassionate lover of life on the one hand. Then there is my Uncle "Doc":  who had great intellect, loved classical and operatic music, fly-fishing, eastern philosophy, and was a benevolent care-giver for low income copper miners, hundreds of which attended his funeral. These are two men who are giants in my psyche and central to who I became as a person.

As I told that person the other day who asked, It's not a cop-out or a failure on my part to be able to decide. I really am comfortable, even honored to be called Curtis or Lloyd.