What's Your Name, Man, By Alexander Hamilton

“What’s your name, man?” This perfectly reasonable question is asked by Aaron Burr in the musical Hamilton, and introduces the audience to Alexander Hamilton. Asking for a name is a very common way to start a conversation with someone and begin to get to know him or her. This introduction has become so common place that no one thinks about the story behind the name he or she has been told, but names hold so much history in them. The reason a name was chosen or the reason a nickname was created is unique to every individual. All names carry a story with them, and I have three names that I use frequently. Maggie, Margaret, and Peggy all have a different origin, which are uniquely important to me. The name that I grew up knowing is Maggie. This …show more content…
My parents’ reasoning was that I could go by Maggie when I was young, and when I get older, I could use the Margaret because that name has a more mature feel. This plan was smart but was not shared with me till second grade. On my first day of school, my teacher gave us a project to ensure that we could spell our own names. I assumed this project would be a simple task until she called out my name, as well as another classmate named Frankie’s name. She told us that we would have to spell out our full names. We looked at each other in confusion, because we assumed we knew our full names. Then she shocked our small second grade minds with this revelation: “Your names are Margaret and Francis.” I do not know how Frankie handle this information, but I felt betrayed. I had grown up as Maggie. Would I have to change my name? Why did I not know this? Did my parents know that my name was Margaret? All these question filled my mind, but the hardest part was yet to come. I now had to spell this new name that I have never heard before. I made a valiant effort, but my spelling has never been my strength, so I suspected that I would be wrong. Apparently “Magrit” is not an acceptable spelling variation of Margaret. Luckily, my teacher decided not to grade these projects. Much to my relief, she also told me I would not have to use Margaret for anything else in the class. When I questioned my …show more content…
My friends started calling me Peggy after a debate over the meaning of the name Margaret in my sophomore theology class. My class was doing a project on each of our own names and I had said that Margaret came from the Greek word for “pearl.” My friend Isobel, who speaks some German, claimed that the actual origin was the German word for “Daisy.” I argued that, since my name is Margaret, I would know the origin. We resolved the dispute by searching “Margaret” on Google and learning that the origin was in fact Greek. This research led to our looking at the nicknames for Margaret and another friend in the class, Olivia, questioned the reasoning of “Peggy” as a nickname for “Margaret.” Olivia decided to start calling me Peggy to see if she could get others to as well, and to our surprise, they did. Initially Olivia and Isobel were the only two to call me Peggy, but then the name started to expand throughout my friend group. Now, when I am being introduced to people, I must make the conscience decision to say either Maggie or Peggy. Typically, I choose Peggy if the person I am meeting will be interacting with my friends, but if he or she is going to socialize with my family, I will use Maggie. Looking back on this incident with Olivia, we find the name change impressive, especially considering we had known each other for little over a