My first name is Lauren, which I’m sure is buried somewhere in this blog. (My full name is Lauren Jean Leach-Steffens, in case you care).
The name ‘Lauren’ comes from Latin, meaning ‘crowned with laurel’, or so I was told as a child. Interestingly enough, it seems to be one of those deterministic names, the ones that shape one’s future. These typically are last names, like the doctor my mother had whose name was ‘Dr. Sickley’ or the undertakers ‘Blood and Wolfe’ in our hometown. But the Lauren who got all the academic honors in high school seems like another deterministic name moment.
I often wonder if I would have been less clumsy if my parents had named me ‘Grace’. I really am a very uncoordinated person, to where I have fallen off chairs and tripped over invisible turtles. Maybe the right name would have fixed it. But no, I’m Lauren, and at least when I was younger, that meant something.
Words Like Me 