I can only recall having known three Gretchens in my life…
Perhaps there were more, whom I can’t remember… or whom I didn’t know were named Gretchen, as well, at birth.
But of those three… they all hated that name..at least two of them to the point of refusing to use it.
The one who WAS called Gretchen was only about ten years old, last time I saw her, and so was I…
Anyhow… the one I knew best, who went by her middle name, instead….
told me she thought that being named Gretchen MADE her do wild things in her youth…
that it led people on destructive paths, just to prove that they weren’t really Gretchens.
I don’t know whether she truly believed that…
but she did get married very young, walk out on her husband one day without saying goodbye…
and by the time I knew her, lead an offbeat life.
Who knows…. this could be what’s wrong with our Gretchen, above.
Strangely… I can only think, off hand, of three other women friends or acquaintances who hated their names…
and all three were/are l named Loretta!
One is quite elderly, and still uses Loretta, but periodically comes up with some weird way to spell it, then gives up.
Two have had other names since childhood.
Here’s the weird thing…
and this is a true story…
The third Gretchen, whom I knew years after my childhood friend Gretchen… but years before that later one…
was Gretchen when we met, but later went by a name she’d chosen for herself…
and it was Loretta.
I could not have made it up.
I can only recall having known three Gretchens in my life…
Perhaps there were more, whom I can’t remember… or whom I didn’t know were named Gretchen, as well, at birth.
But of those three… they all hated that name..at least two of them to the point of refusing to use it.
The one who WAS called Gretchen was only about ten years old, last time I saw her, and so was I…
so maybe by now she’s Star or Katie or Aura like some other self-named women I’ve known.Anyhow… the one I knew best, who went by her middle name, instead….
told me she thought that being named Gretchen MADE her do wild things in her youth…
that it led people on destructive paths, just to prove that they weren’t really Gretchens.
I don’t know whether she truly believed that…
but she did get married very young, walk out on her husband one day without saying goodbye…
and by the time I knew her, lead an offbeat life.
Who knows…. this could be what’s wrong with our Gretchen, above.
Strangely… I can only think, off hand, of three other women friends or acquaintances who hated their names…
and all three were/are l named Loretta!
One is quite elderly, and still uses Loretta, but periodically comes up with some weird way to spell it, then gives up.
Two have had other names since childhood.
I never even knew one was a Loretta till she was 50-ish, and her mother told me.Here’s the weird thing…
and this is a true story…
The third Gretchen, whom I knew years after my childhood friend Gretchen… but years before that later one…
was Gretchen when we met, but later went by a name she’d chosen for herself…
and it was Loretta.
I could not have made it up.