Tapping into your inner genius

In her What’s In A Name? post Safiya asked, Do you like your given name?

I don’t ever remember liking mine.

My given first name, Daryl, means ‘beloved’ according to the name dictionaries. That’s beautiful, and I am beloved. I like the way my given name looks in print, with its fairly unusual spelling (vs Darrell or Darryl). But it never seemed to fit me.

Maybe it’s because my dad gave it to me. My dad and I have a good relationship now, but things were so rocky between him and my mom, he was gone by the time I turned three years old. Obviously I don’t remember a lot of that time, but I didn’t have many fond associations with him when I was growing up.

Whatever the reasons, I was already trying to change my name by the time I was five or six years old. I had narrowed down my career options to detective, explorer, fighter pilot, or cowboy by then. I was always trying to get my mom to call me Pete or Bob, which I thought were good cowboy names. Continue reading →