Call Me B-R-I-T-T-A-N-I

Brittani... To me, my name is who I am, if that makes any sense. I don't know how to put it any other way. I feel like the name, "Brittani," is my name, solely for me. I feel a type of ownership when I think about my name.

As silly as it sounds, think about when you're watching a movie, and one of the characters has your name. The first thing you say to yourself is, "Hey, that's my name!" even though it quite obviously is your name... but that's not the point. The fact that we claim our names relays the sense of ownership and connectedness we have with our name.

Typically girls doodle their names in notebooks when their younger. Then people grow up to get tattoos of their name on their body. We even tend to buy jewelry with our names/initials represented on it. Why all the craze with our names?...Because it's OUR name. Although people have the same names often, each individual still has that unique bond with their name. This describes what people mean when they say that their name defines who they are. I think the infatuation with our names stems from our sense of expression and from the pleasing thought of who we, ourselves, represent.

Names eventually become characteristic of people. Whether it's the way we pronounce our name, or the variation of derivatives that we use interchangeably for our name, names become part of our persona for reasons other than just servings as our primary labeling agents.