The Name Thing

Okay, already—the name thing. Edit­ed to add the ques­tions I missed the first time around.

1. What does your first name mean?
Cynthia=Of the moon; god­dess of the moon. An epi­thet of Diana. Apol­lo was called Cyn­thius, and Diana Cyn­thia, from Cyn­thus, a moun­tain in the island of Delos, in which they were born. She was called also Delia, from the name of the island.
(My moth­er’s name is Diana. She did­n’t know about the con­nec­tion between our names until I told her. I real­ly want­ed to give Katie a name in keep­ing with the tra­di­tion, but her father object­ed strongly.)

2. What does your mid­dle name mean?
Lynn=Waterfall. There are a lot of us Lynns around, huh?

3. What does your last name mean?
Armistead=It’s sup­posed to be derived from d’Armis­tadt, Ger­many. Sup­pos­ed­ly some of Katie’s ances­tors were nobil­i­ty there at one time. It’s not MY name so much as Katie’s which I kept when her father and I divorced.

4. So what does your name mean when put together?
Moon god­dess water­fall in rur­al Germany?

4b. Do you have a nickname?
Cyn. My fam­i­ly calls me Cindy. I hate it. I’ve hat­ed it since I was 6 or 7, not that they care. Please don’t ever do that. Well, not if you wish to con­tin­ue asso­ci­at­ing with me, anyway.

5. What would you have been named if you were the oppo­site gender?
Matthew Scott. They did­n’t even have a girl’s name picked out.

6. Any oth­er name oddities?
I’ve had WAY too many names, thanks to being mar­ried three times. My maid­en name is Rober­son. My first hus­band’s name was Hall. The sec­ond was Armis­tead. The third was Smath­ers. I’ve nev­er been attached to any of them, to be hon­est, oth­er than want­i­ng to share my child’s last name for sim­plic­i­ty’s sake.

7. Do you like your name?
Not particularly.

8. What do you like best about it?
Hmm. Well, it isn’t dread­ful, and it does­n’t grate as some I’ve heard, and it isn’t too weird but it was­n’t so com­mon that I ever had to deal with being one of many Cyn­thias in any situation.

9. What do you like least about it?
Hon­est­ly, the fact that I’ve nev­er had a last name that’s MINE, or to which I’ve felt any real connection.

10. If you HAD to change your name (wit­ness pro­tec­tion pro­gram, what­ev­er), what would you want it to be?
I haven’t ever thought about it much. I’ve nev­er even con­sid­ered tak­ing a mag­i­cal name. I don’t plan to change it again, although I have idly wished that we could come up with a fam­i­ly name that actu­al­ly suit­ed me and Sam.