This weekend, we saw a funny social media post about what your name means in the Urban Dictionary. I forget how lulz the UD is, it’s like an entire site of folks who couldn’t quite cut it at the Onion but is fine for the rest of us.

We started with Matt because I had seen a few funny definitions on the article about the names but when we looked, it started with “eternal sex-god.” Heh. Another one throws in that a Matt will make you feel like a princess when he’s with you (that actually has never happened) but when he’s not with you, you’ll know he’s making ANOTHER girl feel like a princess (also has never happened;)

I lolzed at the “a guy who will grab his female’s best friend’s ass because he knows he can get away with it.” I don’t even know who Matt’s female best friend is but I’m hoping she actually would NOT let him grab her ass.

From there, we went to my name. Now, originally, my name was spelled    J-U-L-I-E but when I was in elementary school, there were about 9 Julie’s and my 3rd grade teacher started giving us distinction’s. I was Julie-I and at some point in junior high I just dropped the ‘e.’ I had it made legal when I got divorced since our divorce was pretty low maintenance and it was easy to do the change (we shared the lawyer and got off pretty easy. I had a friend who got divorced about a year later and when she said it was costing her north of 50 grand so far I nearly fainted. 50 grand. To lawyers. Fuck that.)

Anyways. I’ve been Juli (no e) ever since. In 2003 my biological brother and I located our Hawaiian family, still living on Maui and the door was opened to our past. It seems my birth name was Carol Sue U’ilani Knapp. (You don’t need to google it, our birth mother told our Tutu that we were killed in a car crash in Victoria when the great state of Texas decided to take us away from her and adopt us out to three different families instead of, oh I dunno, fucking help her?!) I’ve read the news clipping of Carol Sue’s death, mind fuck times a billion.

However; ironically enough,  Julie/Juli and U’ilani have similarities in their actual meaning and I won’t lie, it’s comforting that even among two families who never knew each other, the universe took care of making sure there was a connection. Back in the day when I worked with the Texas crew, Rip would call U’ilani my “outer space name” (my Auntie gave me a beautiful Hawaiian pendent with my name on it that I wear proudly.) Shrug, some people don’t understand adoption. Not my problem.

The real Hawaiian meaning of U’ilani is Heavenly Beauty. (I do okay but I think that’s a bit overstated.) Really. The first UD definition of Juli is “the personification of beauty.” heeeeheee. Really, I look at the few pictures I have of my birth mother and then look at pictures of my daughter, yep, skipped a generation! Lulz. (No, I don’t want to hear ‘ooooo but u so purty.’) I’m fine. I do okay. My mother also had thick ankles, see how I’m okay she didn’t pass EVERYTHING on to me!

The fun of the Urban Dictionary meanings; however; comes in the section of “words related to…” section. Example, words related to Matt:

Gay*Sex*Amazing*Dick*Cool*Fuck

A couple of those are my most favorite words on the planet. True story.

Words related to Juli:

Funny*Beautiful*Bitch*Love

Ya, I’ll own those. Heh.

We started looked around at more ‘words related to’ some of our friend’s names…

Yvonne: And Sex Hole (uhhhhWhut?)

Jason: Fag (I’ll be completely honest here, I miss the word ‘fag.’ In the 70’s we could say basically any word that had the meaning of ‘dork’ and people understood that then. No more.)

Jasmine: Sexy*Pretty*Cool (you go girl.)

Mark: Hickey (I’m checking Victoria’s neck next time I see her!)

Amber: An exceptionally attractive pale young woman with beautiful freckles and a divine rack. (yes, I know it’s the full definition but it defines my Amber bestie to a T! So much so that I wonder if her hubby was the one who entered it. heeeee)

So social media has it’s place for fun. I guess. If you have an extra minute, check out your name instead of watching 4 minutes of crappy lifting videos on the Facebook. It’ll be worth your time.

Says Juli…cuz, ya know, Aphrodite was also known as Juli.

Lullllllllllllz!

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Mahatma Gandhi