DOING LIFE

THE BOOK OF ME (BOM) {Challenge No.2: What's in a Name}

So, after quite a bit of intensive research in cyber space, I stumbled upon a few interesting facts regarding my first name, Desíre. The accent on the 'i' threw all the search engines for a loop, and was nowhere to be found. But with no further ado, here's the end result of all my searches:

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Unfortunately, I have never asked my belated foster parents (Roelof & Phoebe Walters) specifically how they came to my name. As far as I know my biological parents named me Desire (without the accent on the í ) and my foster parents added the accent to the í which changed the pronunciation from {DEZ-a-ray} to {DIZ-ea-ray}. How they came across this specific pronunciation I don’t know and am very sad that I don’t have the opportunity anymore to quiz them about this.

The name is French derived from Latin Desiderata ‘desired’. This name was given by early Christians to a longed-for child, but the French form is now often taken as suggesting that the bearer will grow into a ‘desirable’ woman.

The ‘longed-for child’ is actually very apt from my foster parents’ point of view. My foster mom and dad only had one biological daughter. My mom gave birth to a second child, a boy, who only survived for a few days. Following this my mom had numerous miscarriages and they obviously yearned for more children. So it was then that they adopted me (at the age of 3½) many years later, late in their forties and chose to name me Desíre which means ‘desired’ i.e. their desire to have another child.

Some more interesting facts:

There are 15 variant forms of Desirée: Desarae, Desaree, Deseray, Desideria, Desir, Desirae, Desirat, Desiray, Desire, Desirea, Desiri, Desyre, Dezirae, Deziray and Deziree. Mine is probably the 16th variant form i.e. Desíre

The English form of DÉSIRÉE was popularized in the English-speaking world by the movie 'Désirée' in 1954.

A Desiree is also a red-skinned potato.

There is also the song DESIREE written by Neil Diamond during the 1970’s.

There was also a Desiree Clary, a French woman who became Queen of Sweden. She was once the fiancée of Napoleon but they broke off the engagement due to parental opposition. Her husband (Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte) was one of Napoleon's generals and he was elected King of Sweden. The Swedes wanted a soldier as king due to the threat of a Russian invasion. During the early part of her husband's reign, she refused to live in Sweden due to the harsh climate. She moved to Sweden in her later life but never learned Swedish.

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If you are blessed to still have your parents around, don't forget to ask them how they decided on your first name(s). After all, your name is who you are ... it's your identity during your short life here on earth.

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- Identified signing off