Sometimes, when a bout of nostalgia overtakes me, I scroll through past columns, just to refresh my memory of topics that interested me in days gone by.
Hippie names caught my attention in 2015, a decade ago, and I wrote the following commentary on what we in our household would be named if our parents had been so hippie-inclined. I tried recently to find that social media post, but in typical social media fashion, the page seems to have disappeared, perhaps because it was not all that reliable or maybe it was an unsophisticated internet scam.
The following is what I wrote 10 years ago. I stand by the names I think we should have been called, based on these names for the hippies post.
If I were a hippie, I would need a name suitable for a hippie, or so I’ve been led to believe by a recent foray into the mysterious world of social media.
I’m not sure how this piece of information ended up enticing me to click on the link to read more, but sucked in, I was. There I was, being courageous and brave, heading out on a quest to find out what name I would be given by the mysterious persons in charge of handing out hippie names.
The process was simple — give a first name and list one’s gender, male or female, and hit the search button. A swirling goes on while the data is processed and suddenly the hippie name chosen for me pops up on the screen: please call me “Destiny” if it pleases you.
I’m sure I would have been more suited to Apple Blossom, but Destiny it is because: “you firmly believe in the power of life to see you on the right path. You know that everything happens for a reason and so all you have to do is trust your gut and let the universe do the rest.”
Being a bit of a skeptic, I decided to add a challenge to this robotic style of name bestowing. I kept my name as is but decided on a whim to mark off the gender question as male instead of female. After all, Joyce Kilmer, the poet, was a male with my female name. After the swirling ended, the hippie name showed up: “Destiny” it was once again. “Phooey,” I muttered. “This is a joke.”
To continue one more step, I entered Housemate’s name and gender, then switched his gender to female. For both entries, the hippie name of “Butterfly” came up. I laughed out loud at the thought of him being referred to as “Butterfly.” This name was given to him because he is supposedly incredibly sweet-natured, loves spending time with friends, and doesn’t worry about fame and fortune.
All of this hippie naming business was a bit of a lark, even though it is phoney baloney, as an old friend would say. To be quite honest, I wasn’t too aware of the hippie nature of the world when this subculture was alive and thriving. The closest we in my circle came to hippiedom was wearing bell-bottom trousers with safety pins cinching the waist bands in so they wouldn’t take a downward slide.
And looking back at some old photos, Housemate’s leisure suits and beaded necklace might have almost qualified as hippie styles, although research from a reliable source suggests these styles came later than the hippie era and more than anything represented “clueless dressing” — to my way of thinking a rather nasty assessment of what many others were also wearing. Could so many be so wrong?
So there you have us: Destiny and Butterfly, one trusting the universe to unfold as it will and the other, flitting here and there in a sweet-natured journey.
I still prefer Apple Blossom, and how about Moonshine or Moonbeam for Housemate? Sure am glad our parents weren’t into hippy happenings when they picked our names.
Joyce Walter can be reached at [email protected]
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the position of this publication.
