Hello, My Name Is...

The first week of classes, professors always go through the class list, name by name. If it's a class with mixed majors, most likely, each student will have to go around and share their name and a little about themselves. Both typical back-to-school activities involving names.

My name is Laura, and I found it as a store sign during my high school senior trip to Toronto - that's me in the picture up there! One thing I don't like about my name is how it looks without a capital L - laura - a single line just looks silly in the front! A lot of times when people are texting or commenting on Facebook, they do not capitalize, so I'll get "laura" quite a bit. Additionally, in middle school, it was cool to get stuff with just your first initial on it - like key chains, notebooks, or jewelry - but a big L just looked like it stood for Loser, and a little l...well, we've discussed how silly that looks! Other than those two downsides, I like my name!

I always heared that my name meant crown of laurel leaves, and I was like, "That's great, what's that?" I looked into it further and found that leaves from the highly valued laurel tree were woven into wreaths and given as prizes at the ancient Olympic games. Laura can mean, "To wear the victorious crown." It also means, "Leader of the group" or "Beautiful heroic girl."

Of course, I always enjoyed watching or reading Little House on the Prairie when I was younger - the main character's name was Laura! It's not too common of a name, so I don't have to be called Laura T. very often, which is nice! Maybe I'll talk about my middle and last name another time...