With intention and on purpose, my parents named me Regina Lynette. I didn’t choose my name – none of us does. But I learned to love my name at a very young age. And eventually, I began to make some choices about how my name was documented. The first choice I made about my name was in high school because that’s when you start signing documents and applications that will follow you for several years of higher education. I would go through several iterations over the years.
I first decided to document my name as Regina Lynette Walker. No middle initial for me – please spell my middle name. There were some limitations of course but I fully embraced my name in its entirety as given to me by my parents and documented on my birth certificate and social security card.
At this time in my life I had lost my mother, was living in hell with a step-monster, had lost my auntie/godmother and therefore had lost my little sister, and my name was all I had left in some ways. Mommy had a reason for naming me Regina – a hope for elegance. Daddy taught me to wear the royal crown that is the name Regina. My little sister was forever connected to my heart through our shared middle name, even though we were separated when my step-monster imprisoned me and my father emotionally abandoned me. After I graduated college, I eventually made another choice about my name.
The second choice I made about using my name was to “change” it to Regina L. Walker. Practically, it was a bit shorter and I had room for the flourishes I used for my cursive capital letters. It looked mature and was a nod to something my mother told me about her name.
My parents were older – I was called a “pleasant surprise” and there was a gap of 24 years between them. So, they had been educated in a more formal and what might be called sexist way of using married names. I think the form she’d been taught was First/Given Name, Maiden Name, Married Name. For her, this meant sacrificing her beloved middle name. She decided to go against that rule and used First/Given Name, Middle Name, Married Name. And most often she only used her middle initial rather than her full middle name. So now, my name format matched hers and I’d planned to completely drop my maiden name upon marriage just the way she did. Honestly, I lost all emotional connection to the name Walker during that time. My father had died and if I married, there was no one in his place to honor or pay homage to with a surname. And then something painful happened that I don’t fully comprehend that brought forth the most recent choice I’ve made about my name.
I made a third choice of documenting my name by dropping my middle name and initial altogether – Regina Walker. I don’t know what happened to provoke this change but I felt passionately about dropping that initial. I wanted my name to total 12 letters because the number 12 is ubiquitous in my life – for example my birthday is December 12 or 12/12.
I didn’t want to discuss my middle name with inquiring minds. I felt guilt about losing my baby sister and wondered where she was and how she was doing. I felt like I’d betrayed my godmother. My heart was broken, and I had stopped speaking along that gold thread to my sister’s heart nor did I hear anything from the other end. I would cringe when I saw my middle initial and changed it everywhere I could.
I’ve covered the three times I made a choice about my name and never mentioned how I got to Regina Lynette – the name of this blog. Well, that was chosen specifically for the blog and is not a name I use on documents nor is it a name I particularly want to be called. I continue to use only my first and last name for documentation. I continue to be called Regina or Gina as appropriate (and one other name that is only for one other person, and he knows who he is). But as I go along this journey that I’ve named Identity, I am using the two names that were given to me, selected with intention and purpose. While it has significance, I don’t include my surname here because I got that by default and there is no journey to follow to figure out who I am as a Walker – my temperament and some physical features have done that sufficiently.
I am Regina Lynette. The name Regina is of Latin derivation and means Queen. The name Lynette is of French origin and means Pretty One.
*Technically the name Lynette has many different origins and meanings. The American/Anglo Saxon is “bird”. The Celtic is “Grace”. The Latin origin means “mild”. And the French-Welsh/Welsh meaning is “nymph” or “idol”. I’ve taken a simpler definition with heavier influence of the French and use the definition “Pretty One”.
I am Regina Lynette 