My daughter must have been thinking about her ancestry, when she forwarded me an email the other day title “The history of the Parrish name.” Parrish is my maiden name, and although I should have been quite impressed by her writing skills I decided to google the first line.
“From very ancient history it can be ascertained that the name parisii can be found as far back as 250 b.c. they were a celtic clan that lived in paris, france.”
I quickly realised she had plagiarised the entire article from http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Creek/2696/History.html, in which case a reminder to her of copyright and plagiarism followed. The article was very interesting though, but instead of thinking of my Paryce, Parys, Paryse, Paryssh, Paris, Parish or Parrish named ancestors I thought of how now days people are called names like Apple, and although I haven’t heard of Orange, Banana, or Grapefruit yet, I wonder how far away it will be before some child is given such a name. On top of this there is a growing acceptance of women keeping their maiden names when they marry. This appears to indicate women want to remain independent in their marriages, but I really can’t understand why some women then hyphenate them. My daughter’s friend is called Indigo, after a colour, which I don’t mind, and coincidentally her surname is Parrish-Something. So from here, if Indigo marries and keeps her name and husbands name she will be Indigo Parrish-Something-HusbandsName.
Gee, if this trend was to remain we would all have names longer than the Kings and Queens of Europe and it would make is so much easier for our future generations to track back their family lines but what about the poor children having to learn their names, as well as some of the teasing some must get. I was never teased about my name as such, but I remember being called parachute. My husband’s name is John, and although his mother probably named him after one of the Johns in the Bible, he was often called ‘toilet’.
Unfortunately my mother-in-law never took into account Australian slang, where the word “John” is used to describe a toilet. I have to go now, I’m busting to get to the John.
