I was born Kristin Marie Ferrell. I like my name for a few reasons. I like the way it sounds, what it means, and why my parents named me Kristin Marie. Besides that, I like what the names mean to me, what they have come to mean over time, and what I've discovered they mean in origin as well.
Kristin is the Greek for Christian, follower of Christ. I like that my first name is the first thing I want most to be in life. It seems appropriate; first things first. My Dad briefly dated a girl named Kristin in high school during one of the breaks my parents took from their togetherness in those days. Dad found Kristin particularly interesting because she claimed to have read the encyclopedias, A-Z, in one summer. My mom confirms, the girl was pretty and smart. I love this story because I think it's really cool that I'm named after a smart girl. It's also kind of a thrill to me that my mom is so incredibly cool, so secure in herself, that she would be okay with one of her own children being named after one of her husband's former flames. I just think that's such a meaningful token of female esteem and appreciation, not to mention a sign of complete non-jealousy, HUZZAH!! What an awesome radical my mother is! I am so proud. If more women were that amazingly self-actualized I bet we'd get paid as well as our male counterparts! Imagine that! Dollar for dollar! Female jealousy is one of the societal poisons that rips girls off, big time. As long as we're working against each other the guys will ALWAYS have a leg up. It's a chauvinist's favorite weapon and girl's worst enemy. Think about it.
My middle name is Marie which is derived from French and means bitter. I didn't always appreciate this but I've come to think of the word bitter in a number of different ways. Life isn't always sweet. In fact, it's the rarity that makes the sweetness so sublime. Life is mostly hard, mostly arduous, and mostly perplexing. Those who can embrace life's bitterness, maybe add a little sugar themselves, stomach the bitterness, maybe even develop a taste for it; these are those who prevail. And so I endeavour to embrace bitterness. I do love zucchini, grapefruit, and dark chocolate.
My last name, Ferrell, comes from the Irish and means "valor". I love this because I am a fan of all things brash and brazen. I love courageous people, people who are brave and charismatic. I am also a fan of a subtler brand of courage, the gentle knowing, the living and the letting live kind of bravery that let's people be themselves and allows life to unfold its little mysteries in its own time and fashion. It takes courage to be patient and long suffering. Champions don't always wear suits of armor. Sometimes they don sweater vests and thick glasses, tweed, Hush Puppies. Ferrell can also mean "wild". I was reminded of this a fair few times over the years by hopeful boys with lofty plans for bagging me. Cute. (Not so much) I think of this 'wildness' a little differently. As human animals we are born rather wild. It takes years and years to hone our intelligences, make us more soulful and less slothful. It all depends on what you nurture I guess, the natural man or the eternal self. So being feral, is just the beginning, a reminder, a place to spring forward. When I fail to resist some natural tendency toward selfishness I am reminded that I am still partly wild. Unless I want only to ever be natural I must use valor to react differently to life, to be more than just a stimulus/response kind of creature, one who can exercise tremendous effort toward better things like faith, love, self sacrifice. It's okay to be human. I think of it as a condition. It doesn't define me though. It's only an experience. It isn't who I'll always be. I won't always have a fallen nature.
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