Mim

When I was younger, you could always spot people who didn't know my sister very well - they'd call he JOANN. Well, her christened name was Joann K Lockhart, but her family & host of friends called her Mimmy, later MIM.

Dad insisted their first daughter be named in some way for her mother, Katharine Reynolds Lockhart. The most that Mom would allow was her initial as Mim's middle name.

"When she wants, she can pick her own middle name," Mom explained. (It took over 40 years, but Mim finally did, in time to have it emblazoned on her degree of Masters of Social Work, from Rutgers.)

Will never know if Mom's decision was based on her lifelong deep sense of deprecation ~OR~ a canny awareness of Mim's iconoclastic personality.

It wasn't until near the end of her life - and years after she passed - that I discovered far deeper implications behind Mom's choice of her first daughter's names.