WHAT'S IN A NAME

Every family has its nanas and pop-pops and we have our share of those. One of my cousin's children called Aunt Jo "Joann", which makes sense in a dyslexic sort of way. Another called their mother Mary "Mercy" which I always found strangely interesting. But how do you explain my sister calling our grandmother Mary "Ida"? There were family members who continued to call her that until the day they died. Now Julia has renamed both grandmothers and the new names seem to be permanent, Her father's mother, Edna, is now Mimi and I am Nina.
Animal names are always interesting. My first Border Collie was purchased in July. I named Belle in honor of my grandmother because she had such strength of character and steadiness. We had a hail storm. In July. I found my cat, Anna N'Kitty, in the Manassas Mall at an adoption day. Names were required before the animals could be taken, so I looked at my choice and thought what shall I name you and clearly heard in my head "call me Buffy and lets get out of here!" That was good for me. After she settled in my house, I said to her OK, what is your real name and she replied "You will discover it". After much thought, I looked at her blue eyes one day and thought, of course, Sweet Judy Blue Eyes. Now my friends are all intelligent and well read with many interests, but not one of them showed a flicker of
recognition. Nor did my children. So when my son renamed her Anna N'Kitty and one and all finally understood her name, I was relieved not to have to bemoan Judy Collins' loss of popularity every time I looked at my cat. We briefly considered renaming her Hillary to keep up with the times, but she is an Anna through and through.
Then there's Johnny Mercer. After all 3 of my children had seen Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil, I asked them if they noticed that when the reporter came in, t he pianist started playing Johnny Mercer's Fools Rush In. In unison, they replied "Who's Johnny Mercer".
AAAAAAUUUUGGGHHH!!!!!