My full name is RaeAnn Horsley Hurst. I was named
after a barn. Interesting story really.
I am the first of 10 children born to my parents.
When I was born the Vietnam war was going on. My dad had joined the navy to
help support his young family and pay for his education. A few months before I
was born, mom and dad were stationed in Washington State. One day they were
driving through the countryside and saw a barn with the name RaeAnn written on
it. They had discussed the name DeeAnna if they had a girl, but realized that
RaeAnn would be both my grandmother’s names put together. My maternal grandmother
is named Naomi Rae Young and she went by Rae in her adult years. My paternal
grandmother is named Anne Sweeney.
When a daughter was born to them, my parents
decided to name me RaeAnn Horsley. The story goes that grandma Horsley never
really felt like I was named after her because my parents spelled my name the
way it was written on the barn instead of adding an ‘e’ to the end. Soon after
I was born, they returned to that barn and took a picture with me, the barn in
the background.
When I had my first child, a daughter, I decided
to honor grandma Horsley by giving her the middle name Anne. Amberly Anne never
knew my grandmother, but hopefully my grandma appreciates her namesake.
As a teenager I had some friends that started
calling me Raymond to tease me. Pretty soon I stopped fighting it and just
accepted it. I remember one time going to the mall with my friends and having
one of them call me over to look at some clothes. She said, “Raymond, come see
this whatever.” I responded by coming over and seeing what she was looking at.
Then I heard a little child say to her mother, “Mom, they called that girl
Raymond.” We got a good laugh out of that.
As an adult, my close friends will sometimes call
me Rae, and I don’t mind it at all, but when I hear people I don’t know well
call me Rae, it bothers me. I’m pretty much RaeAnn to most people.
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| The barn I was named from |
