Wow..
Who knew naming YOUR child would bring up so much controversy. From a simple curl of the nose, to mis-pronouncing the name, giving us other suggestions and even worse...accusing us of picking something satanic. I am baffled. We didn't ask for your opinion on the name - we're telling you what our little girls name WILL BE and yet, people are still choosing to be rude and disrespectful.
What happened to people holding their tongue? Funny, it's almost like OUR child isn't OUR child and she hasn't even arrived yet. Parents choose names for their children in many, whether it be naming them after someone close, someone famous, a character from a book, movie or TV show or just because they like the name. The name Hardy chose for our little girl happens to originate from Greek Mythology. Does that mean we BELIEVE IN Greek Mythology? No. Does the fact that Greeks believed in multiple Gods & Goddesses mean we believe the same? No.
Our daughters name is Persephone (again pronounced per-sef-oney), in Greek Mythology she was known as the Goddess of the Underworld - but she wasn't BORN into this. Her story is as follows: One day she's picking flowers in a field with other beautiful women, when suddenly she picks the wrong flower (which actually doesn't even bloom at that time so it should have been a red flag) and from the ground bursts Hades, God of the Underworld. Persephone had been approached by many other men, but none were worthy enough of her love (according to her mother Demeter). So Hades kidnaps her, brings her to the underworld and tries to impress her with all of the "fantastic" (insert irony here) things he has to offer. She grows bored and home sick of course, not eating or sleeping. Till one day, a little punk convinces her to eat some pomegranate seeds. <You can relate the eating of these seeds to that of the THE GARDEN, yea the one Adam & Eve weren't supposed to eat from.> By eating those seeds, she basically doomed herself into remaining in the underworld forever because she partook in the food. Hades agreed to let her visit home, which meant ultimately she was only in the underworld for 1/3 of the year each year. When she was home, this is when they experienced springtime - crops were harvested and flowers bloomed and every thing was beautiful.
So what did you get from that short story? Did you ONLY read that she was Goddess of the Underworld? Did you ONLY read that she was snatched from her home and doomed to live with Hades? Or did you read that although she has a "dark" title - her life wasn't so bad and she's essentially responsible for the changing of the seasons and beauty? Well if you're like Hardy's parents, then you likely only stopped at Underworld and are now automatically thinking we chose a satanic name. That the Greeks were satanic because they believed in multiple gods and goddesses instead of the ONE God we know and believe in. How could we pick a name so depressing with awful meaning behind it?
If we picked Freddy because it was in Nightmare on Elm Street, would that make us satanic because it came from a horror movie? Do you get where I'm going here? Aside from WHERE the name originated, the fact is we love the name and that's what her name will be. Don't associate it with Greek Mythology if you don't agree with it.
So lets get past the name, now we're being berated with people asking what we'll call her. Umm...what's wrong with calling her by her name? Persephone? Why does there HAVE to be a nickname. Of course I would rather you call my little girl a nickname derived from her full name - but still....why can't you say it? It's as simple as Stephanie, in fact it's only 1 letter longer. So if you can say Stephanie then you can certainly say Persephone. Sure it's different and you may have never heard it, but it's not THAT hard to pronounce.
END. RANT.
