Hello, my name is... Michelle??

For the longest time, if someone mistakenly calls me by a name other than my own, it is probably going to be "Michelle." Why is this I wonder? My grandmother's second husband, Al, used to call me Michelle because he had a granddaughter named Michelle so it was a regular slip of the tongue. I got a High School graduation gift from a friend of my parents addressed to "Michelle" (I had to call and make sure it was for me before I opened it!), and once in a conversation on what names people look like, someone told me,without knowing my history of being called Michelle, that I look like a Michelle. I even wrote in my Senior memory book "I think I should name my daughter Michelle since everyone calls me that."

My neighbor just stopped over to ask my husband to help him move a refrigerator from his truck into his house. Since Hubby is on night shift and had crawled into bed only moments before the knock on the door came, and he wanted to pull on a shirt on before going to help. While he was changing, my neighbor, who I have lived next to and known for 3 years now, says to me, "So how've you been, Michelle?" When I smiled and corrected him, he just laughed and said, "I did it again, didn't I? I called you Michelle when I first met you too didn't I?" His daughter and I have the same name so why he messes up my name is a mystery to us all.

So why "Michelle"?? Should I have been named Michelle? I was adopted, but I've even asked my biological mother and had she kept me, she was going to name me either Lynnlee (a combo of her name and my biological father's) or Amy Elizabeth (Which she ended up using several years later when she had my sister). So no "Michelle" there.

One of my best friends recently changed her name. She always hated her name and was never to thrilled with the person who both named her nor the one she was named after. A certain name kept popping into her head and eventually she just finally went and legally changed her name. She's never been happier, and her name now suits her.

I don't want to change my name. I actually love my name, the people who named me, and who I am named after (even if I don't always get along with her - lol). In fact, if/when I ever have a daughter, I plan on passing down a part of my name to her.

I just wonder... why "Michelle"?