Recently I shared with some friends that I’ve been using a name that isn’t mine when I’m making a dinner reservation or giving a coffee order at the kind of place that wants your name because they have no idea who you are.
I tell them my name is Miriam. They don’t know that I’m fibbing.
This name belonged to my maternal grandmother, Miriam Lee McDaniel Akers, who was born on June 1, 1913, at Shinnston, West Virginia. To me, she was the most interesting and energetic relative of her generation. She excelled at so many things you expect from a grandmother — pie-making, sweater-knitting, etc., but she also played poker, bet the horses and rolled dice for countless games of Yahtzee with me at her kitchen table. One hot summer day she taught me how to harness the sun’s ray through a magnifying glass and set a piece of paper on fire.
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She was my favorite grandparent, and I was fortunate to live on the same farm with her for about 10 years after she and my grandfather moved to Kentucky.
The idea of occasionally and harmlessly borrowing her identity came to me as an act of remembrance. I wanted to create situations where Grandmother’s name would be spoken aloud in the present time even though she died nearly 40 years ago. (This is an old-fashioned name, and you might need some help with the pronunciation. It sounds like Merry-uhmm.)
The name borrowing started a few months ago at the Hopkinsville Rotary Auction, when I put in my bids for some items and gave them my real cell number and my not-so-real name. Everyone listening to the auction on WHOP radio or watching it live at the Memorial Building heard “Miriam Akers” spoken several times.
The people in the Hopkinsville Rotary office kind of expect this behavior from me. Before I started using my grandmother’s name to place bids, I was often going by Chris Brown (my son) for bidding purposes. When I showed up this year to pay for a history book that Miriam had the winning bid for, the Rotary office manager said matter-of-factly, “So you’ve got another name, I hear.”
As you can see from the photo in this column, the folks are Starbucks are struggling with the correct spelling of grandmother’s name. A few times I’ve seen “Marian” stuck to the side of my coffee cup. One barista apparently tried so hard that she came up with “Mary-Am.” Now I anticipate how each one will spell her name.
Of course, the spelling doesn’t matter. It’s the spoken part that does.
When I described this little ritual of mine in a Facebook post, I was heartened by friends who commented and said they might try using the names of their dearest relatives.
Ron Hicks wrote, “I can’t wait to order somewhere and hear them call out my Father’s name. This sooo moved me today.”
My aunt, who was named for her mother but always went by the middle name, Lee, has the last word on this.
She commented, “As I was named after my mother, I use the name “Miriam” more and more these days.”
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
