Where Did The Name Adwynna Come From?

I love the fresh feeling of a WordPress site with it's Hello World title to welcome you to your first post. I've done a lot of writing for other people but this is my first post for a site that bears my name!

Speaking of names. It's taken years for me to embrace mine fully. My given name is Adwynna, so let's get the origin and pronunciation of my name over with right here in this first post.

After all, these are the most common questions I get asked!

Adwynna is pronounced, add WIN ah. There are no hotdogs in my name! Weiners, that is! I've trained entire crowds of people to say my name only to have one person digress and call me Edweeeeeeennnna and somehow the entire group grabs the mustard and applies liberally!

Yes, you are correct (I already know the next question.), Edwin and Edwina are Welsh. Adwynna is not technically Welsh because my mother made it up. At the time of this writing there are no other Adwynna's when you search the internet for my name. This is both cool, because my name is unique, and slightly embarrassing, as the fact that I have a dog named after me and that I once ordered a pink journal pop up in the search results. Just did that as I was writing this post. Yikes! There is simply nowhere to hide in this day and age of Google, LinkedIn and Facebook!!

How did my parents come up with Adwynna then?

My mother was not one to call her children made up names. My older sister's name is Kim and my younger sister's name is Tracey. Mum was placed in quarantine after I was born because she developed a rash on her underarms because of an allergic reaction to her deodorant. They kept her there for 5 days, which might have been an enjoyable break from being a busy mother if I hadn't been in the nursery while she was alone and crying because her milk was drying up.

This was back in the days when breastfeeding was considered unsavory and I was thriving nicely from my newborn diet of diluted Carnation Evaporated Milk. SO NOT! I mean really? Who thought that was a good idea?? Although I was apparently happy in the hospital nursery, being spoiled with attention from the nurses, I quickly developed eczema, incessant crying and failure to thrive.

With some time on her hands in isolation, my mother (she sort of recalls that it went like this) decided to not call me Winifred after her sister and instead chose to put Win into Edwina (where win already is but it's pronounced ween, see previous notes about hotdogs). Thus, she changed the spelling and the pronunciation. No word on how thrilled my Dad was with the choice when he arrived to pick us up a week later. Hmmmm....must ask him that!

So there you have it. The long story of how I got my unique name. The other side of this story will get posted soon...and comes from a deeply mystical meditation in late 2015.

For those of you with different names or odd spellings for common names, I know you can relate to the teasing, explaining and endless times you've spelled your name. Like me, you probably go to great lengths to say names correctly and pronounce them the way the person who actually has the name prefers!

Before we leave and get onto more serious things in this blog, just practice with me one more time...add WIN ah.

Awesome! You've got it...now let's move on to why you came to this site to begin with!

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