Duncan, Nardag, Morty, Hooper

There is notice in this week’s Royal Gazette that a person with middle name Nicole has changed it to Cole. Changing your name isn’t the most difficult thing to do, but it involves paperwork, and a $185 fee. I wonder what it is about the “Ni” that prompted this desire for change.

[[Oliver]] has two middle names, Duncan and Lowell.

Lowell he came by honestly.

Duncan he came by because of a misunderstanding.

Our friend Wendy had a baby boy a month before Oliver was born, and named him Dillon. But when Catherine heard the news, and the name, she mis-remembered this as Duncan and that’s what she told me his name was.

A few days later, when we learned the truth of the matter, and that Duncan was, so to speak, on the market again, we snapped it up as a middle name for Oliver.

A similar happenstance gave me to understand that our friends Bob and Yvonne had a baby girl they’d chosen to name Nardag.

I thought this an unusual choice, but who was I to call it into question. So I enthusiastically embraced it.

A few days later, when we learned the truth of the matter – that Nardag was, in fact, named Nadja – I had a hard time coping with the change, so enthusiastically had been my embrace.

To the point where I have continued to refer to Nadja as Nardag in the intervening years.

I did the same thing with roommates my brother Steve had back when he was a young lad living in Toronto.

His roommates had actual names, I’m sure; but to me they were always Morty and Hooper.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that Nardag Nadja lands on Prince Edward Island today, a fully-formed adult, where she and a group of friends will occupy our back yard – or perhaps our living room, if it rains – for the night before heading out on a camping adventure in the Island’s hinterlands.

And, tomorrow, my brother Steve and his family land on the Island too – presumably without Morty or Hooper – for a fun-filled family vacation.

I will try very hard to keep their names straight.