I have this thing.  My parents knew about it. I eventually made non-committal peace with it, but here it is:  I really have never, ever enjoyed my first name.  Mostly, it’s because, in 1965, the name “Lisa” was the single most commonly given name. I’m assuming just to girls, but I don’t judge. So, I didn’t like not being unique– “Just another Lisa”, which was an online pseudonym I used for a time. Ironically, I didn’t like that I was the unique one in my family– my parents and my only sibling all had the same first initial, so we’d get Christmas cards from relatives addressed to:  “J,J,J and Lisa”. So I felt at once and outlier and common as muck.

Well, today I got a little gift from the Universe.  I took a break from conference planning to take a tour in a nearby community– the Historic Fishing Village of Steveston (more on that in a future post). I visited the “Gulf of Georgia Cannery”–a national historic site.  It was a rainy weekday, so at the time I was the only visitor.  The cashier asked one of her young co-workers to show me in and point out the highpoints of the facility.  The young girl’s name was Lisa.  I told her that was my name, also, but I had never met a Lisa her age.  She laughed and agreed, and also agreed to this photo:

Two Lisa’s, one by luck and one by choice.

….and then she went on to tell me that Lisa was the name she chose for her English name before her family emigrated from China.

Wasn’t that a little humbling for a grumbling Lisa.