By Faith Ellestad

I was six when I realized I was the only one in my family not named after a cherished relative. All my siblings were namesakes- my sister was named after our grandma and great-grandma.  My older brother was a “The third”, after my dad and grandpa, and my younger brother bore the moniker of my long-deceased maternal grandfather. Even Mom and Dad were named after their parents but I was just plain Faith. No association with anyone. This injustice was clear to my first-grade self. I too wanted to be named after somebody. Anybody!  Just like the others. Had Mom and Dad run out of relatives? I needed to know. But their explanation, I was special, didn’t cut it for me. I didn’t feel special. I felt left out.

At the time, I didn’t know that I was unplanned, born just a year and three days after my brother (the Third).  Apparently, according to my mom, Grandma felt it was rather unwise having two babies so close together. My parents assured her that my unexpected arrival was clearly a gift from the heavens, and they just took it on Faith (get it?) that the timing was spiritually arranged. Ergo, my name. (Not until I entered high school, however, was this convoluted story was related to me, I assume simply because having babies close together may have involved sex, a thing that was never discussed at our house. God forbid.)

It was when I started religion class in grade school that my name became a liability. Whereas my lucky sibs were named after beloved family members, I was named for a virtue.  And not just any virtue, one that could be endlessly chanted and joked about.  “Faith, Hope and Charity!’  Ha Ha.  Granted, kid humor is not sophisticated, but I didn’t like being teased. I got enough of that at home!

As if that weren’t enough holiness, my middle name is Mary.  I can still feel myself cringing when someone in the family called out in public: “Faith Meeh-ry!”  UUUGHH.

My parents assuring me Faith was a beautiful name didn’t help, especially as I got older and “Faithful” and “Faithless” became more frequent.

How I wanted to be “Maureen” instead.  Lucky Maureen Duffy, a girl in my third-grade class, was pretty, tall and got to wear patent leather shoes to school. She was the teacher’s pet and no one teased her about her name or anything else. I envied everything about her, and even suggested a name change, but my parents showed no inclination to call me Maureen and persisted in calling me Faith or Faithie. Eventually I just pretty much shut up about the whole thing. I figured they loved me in spite of their unfortunate choice of name.  On the rare occasions I complained about the teasing, which, though generally benign, was ongoing, and never not irritating, they would just say,

“Oh they just kid you because they like you.”

 How did that make sense to an eight-year-old?

In High School, as my social anxiety became more acute, I tried to divert attention away from myself, including my name, which was an easy target.  I learned If you didn’t raise your hand, you were rarely called on, and could keep your name pretty much off the radar. Of course that tactic didn’t enhance my scholastic achievements which were desultory at best.

 I switched high schools three times, and at each one, trod the “Faith, Hope and Charity” gauntlet for a month or two.  The hilarity never got old, apparently.

 “Just Faith”, I would sometimes respond, after which one or two especially clever classmates would refer to me as “Just Faith” until they belatedly sensed my frustration. But I survived, eventually even finding a bit of humor in the situation.

Once I was old enough to frequent the “Beer Bars” in Kenosha I often hung out at Dicks, out in the county with my fellow 18-year-old friends.  Dick’s was smoky, grubby, plastered with irreverent posters, and usually packed with swarms of kids drinking 3.2 beer out of large flimsy plastic cups, laughing and sloshing warm foam on each other, generally indulging in enthusiastic, fun, overserved festivity.

On one such occasion (and here I admit there were more than was probably wise), one of my friends noticed and loudly pointed out a black-and white poster of a wide-eyed kitten hanging by its claws from a clothes line.  The caption underneath proclaimed “Keep the Faith, Baby”.

Well, of course, my friends, in their current states of inebriation, were seized with paroxysms of glee.

“Keep the Faith, Baby”. “Yeah, Keep the Faith” Howls of laughter.  “Yeah, Keep the baby, Faith”!  All eyes on me!  I was a thing, for a few moments.  I actually enjoyed the brief notoriety. Fortunately, it’s harder to blush when you’re drinking. Later in the summer, my brother found a copy of that poster and gave it to me.  I kept on the bulletin board in my dorm room for a year.

I was coming to terms with my name, at least, even if my feelings about it remained unresolved.

A few years later, I got married and shortly after the wedding, my husband and I were laughing about the part of the ceremony where we exchanged vows.  Since our rehearsal had been cut short by the illness of the priest in charge, we hadn’t been able to practice, and were unprepared when the celebrant handed the groom-to-be a card containing the vows to be read. with a capital N indicating a name to be filled in.

Taken completely by surprise, the groom started reading off the card. “I, N er Peter, take you Faith…,” etc. Reminiscing about this incident triggered me to tell him about my name issues and childhood desire to be Maureen instead of Faith.

“Yeah, I know what you mean” he agreed.  “In grade school, I wanted to change my name to Bruce”

“Bruce?”  He didn’t conjure up a Bruce-like image in my mind.  “Why did you want to be Bruce”.

He looked at me like I was dense.

“Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater.  You know?”

Of course, I knew. I was instantly, and still am, sympathetic. Parents, you just can’t be too careful.

Suffice it to say when choosing names for our kids, we were beyond thoughtful.  Neither is named after anyone, no initials spell anything suggestive, and their names don’t lend themselves to nicknames.  Still, at school, there was some rhyming and associating, but fortunately nothing upsetting. Or at least they never said so.

As time as passed, and more people have said to me, “Faith, what a pretty name,” I have grown to like my name, even embrace it.  Once I had a really annoying boss who at a job interview asked me,

“Do you mind if I call you Faye?” 

“ My name is Faith”, I explained, in case he hadn’t heard it correctly.

“I know,” he said, but Faith is hard to say.  Can I call you Faye?”

“No,” I said, I go by “Faith”.  He hired me anyway and just referred to me as

 “my receptionist”, which seemed harder to say than Faith. Whatever. We endured each other for a year.

Even after evolving in the acceptance and appreciation of my name, I still found the rather pious reasoning behind it to be kind of cringy, not something you could explain as easily as, “Oh, I was named after my Great Aunt, or oh she was my Dad’s favorite teacher.  Truth be told, I felt Mom and Dad didn’t choose the correct child to name Faith.  I was the one for whom religion didn’t work out very well I always felt a tinge of guilt over their disappointment with my spiritual choices.  Even so, Mom and I discussed the story of my name many times over the years.

One day, a few months before she died, she and I were talking about her college experiences.

“You know,” she said, “I was very young when I started college” (she was 15) “and I had some wonderful friends taking care of me. I’ll show you.” We got out her college yearbook, which I didn’t know even existed, and she turned to her sorority photo page, full of signatures.  She pointed out the girl standing directly behind her.

“That was my best friend.  She watched out for me and I just loved her.  Her name was Faith, I named you after her.”

Wow! Speechless. Mic drop.

How I wish I had known that as a kid.  I’m glad I know now, though. I was special just like the others! The mystery of my name is solved. Mom, however, remains an enigma.

© 2025 Faith Ellestad

Faith has been writing to amuse her family since she was old enough to print letters to her grandparents. Now retired, she has the opportunity to share some personal stories, and in the process, discover more about herself. Faith and her husband live in Madison, Wisconsin. They are the parents of two great sons and a loving daughter-in-law.