Name-Sake

The history of my name doesn’t have much substance to it. I wasn’t named after a great biblical character or anyone in my family tree. There is, however, a little back-story. As it goes, my mom was leaning toward the name Amber, but my dad was really vying for the name Shana. The origin of the name Shana is uncertain, but is said to be Yiddish for “beautiful.” It is also said that it may be a variant of Shoshanna, which is Hebrew for “lily” or “rose.” While my mom also liked this name, there was already a young girl at church who had the name Shana, and my mom didn’t want me to be dubbed “Shana number two.” To fix this, my parents simply altered the sound of the name and contacted a baby naming service to find out what spelling would be best. My middle name, Christen, is a female variant of Christian and I am very glad to have it. The sound doesn’t flow when paired with my first name, but I like it just the same. My last name, Nix, is most likely of German origin and can mean two things. The first one, which the family members from my dad’s side are less fond of, is that Nix is a sprite or water fairy. The other is that it means nothing. Literally, nothing. It can vary within the German language to also mean “no” or “zero.”

One day last semester, a friend humored me enough to say that in Hebrew, the word Shanae translates to “year.” This same person tends to trick my gullible self all the time and I have since been told that he was probably just at his normal trade during the conversation. While I was still under his influence, however, I came to be entertained with the idea that if this were the case, then my first, last and middle name put together could come to represent the first coming of Jesus. However much I stretched the concept, I liked that my full name could mean “year zero” when “Christ” came. Well, it was pleasant while it lasted. Whatever my name here may or may not mean, I am much more interested in what my heavenly name will be. Now that is something to look forward to!