A Rose by Any Other Name

I was born the day after Shavuos, and in keeping with the season, was named Shoshana Rus.

Aha.

So, everyone was named for someone, and they could write these beautiful essays about the “very special person” they were named for. Not me.

Even a feeling would have been better: “My parents were so grateful when I was born, and that’s why my name is Yehudis Tehilla Bracha Tova Shira.” But no, I had to be named for… flowers? Really?

This angst resurfaced all through elementary school. Sometimes I thought about making it up: I could write a beautiful essay about my great-grandmother Shoshana (was anyone in Warsaw or Pultusk named Shoshana in 1902?) who was a big tzadeikes and headed the women’s chevra kaddisha and married off poor brides.