As many of you know, I write using a pen name.  My ego wanted me to publish using my full name, including my middle name, but my humbler side coaxed me to publish using a pen name that had special meaning to me.   I'm a Christian, and I decided to use JC so that I am reminded to always place Jesus Christ at the center of my life.  My actual initials are JC, and many of my closest friends have always called me JC as a nickname, if I heard them use my proper name, I wouldn't know how to respond.  I use JC Ellis when I do television appearances, because JC Ellis rolls off the tongue easier than JC Conrad-Ellis.  Legally, my last name is hyphenated.  I've been married for a looooong time now, and I still use Conrad-Ellis as my last name.  The Ellis family that I married into is wonderful, but I am proud of my Conrad ancestry and proud to have been born into a family of accomplished Conrad men and women.  I'm glad that I chose to hold on to my "maiden" name when I married.  My name.  My choice. 

In addition to Jesus Christ, a lot of famous people share the initials JC.  I googled "famous people with JC as their initials" and learned that someone has a blog devoted to writing about people with the initials JC.  Apparently there are over 500 "famous" people with my initials.  Curious, I peeked at the blog and saw many names that I recognized (John Cusack, Jack Cafferty, Jimmy Carter) but there were many that were missing (Joan Cusack (John's funny and talented sister) Julia Child, Julius Caesar & Jesus Christ.)  I wondered why the blogger omitted these names.  Personal blog.  Personal choice.  That got me thinking, what's in a name?

Jill, Stephanie or Lisa.  Those were the names that I wanted when I was in grade school.  My parents blessed me with a perfectly lovely first name which I love (and it's now making a comeback I might add), but I wanted to be named Jill, Stephanie or Lisa.  Stephanie and Lisa were the names of girls that I thought were popular and pretty.  Jill was Farrah Fawcett's character on Charlie's Angels.  I thought that if I had a name like that I would be popular and pretty too.  As a child, I was banana yellow with a big forehead, stringy hair and a field goal size gap between my two front teeth.  It wasn't a good look.  I would often practice writing my new name with my last name.  I stopped short of researching how to change my name.  I knew that wouldn't fly.  Besides, my dad and brother shared my JC initials, which I thought was cool.  By the age of eleven, I was a five foot seven inch, rail thin, banana yellow adolescent who towered over everyone in middle school. The gap was still there, but I embraced it like a treasured family heirloom.  All of the Conrad women have a gap.  The gap became cool.  But the acne on my big forehead was less cool.  By middle school, I was wise enough to know that changing my name wouldn't solve my mirror problem, so I no longer doodled my pseudonym in an attempt to morph into one of Charlie's Angels.  What's in a name?

One of my readers asked me why I gave two of my characters such "ethnic sounding names" specifically Tanisha and Rashanda.  My answer was easy.  What's in a name?  Just like I'm proud to explain to people why I hyphenated my last name, I'm proud to explain that my goal was to write a book featuring girls of color that all readers could find relateable.  I am an equal opportunity author.  I want girls of all races, religious backgrounds including Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, etc. to buy and read the Black Diamond Series because one of the central themes in my writing is tolerance and a respect for that which is different.  A desire for people to stop judging others lest we be judged.  In some of my marketing material I share that my stories are a great read for girls ages eleven to eighteen and anyone who used to be a girl ages eleven to eighteen or anyone who knows a girl ages eleven to eighteen.  Everyone can relate to something or someone in my books.  I deliberately chose to give two of my characters more ethnic sounding names because, as a woman of color, I wanted to tell a story using voices that are often overlooked, stereotyped or caricatured in the literary world.  I wanted to dispel the notion that because someone has an ethnic sounding name, we can make certain assumptions about the person based on their name and limit the opportunities afforded to them.  Hopefully, readers are able to take this life lesson with them and use it to be slower to judge someone based on something as limiting as their name.  This lesson is further explored in the final book in my series, Sunshine on Sundays, when Tanisha chastises a well meaning person who suggests that she change her name to something "less ethnic" sounding. 

I'm guilty of it too.  When I hear a name that has several syllables, or an interesting pronunciation, I almost always assume the person is African American.  Years ago, I worked with a guy whose daughter's name was Kendra.  He and his wife are white.  I was shocked.  To me, Kendra sounded like a black name.  I now have a white neighbor whose daughter's name is Malia.  In my stereotypical head, Malia is a "black" name.  Many of us are guilty of name profiling the way some police officers are guilty of racial profiling, stopping motorists because of the color of their skin.  Beulah, Ethel, Mildred.  Those are "old" sounding names conjuring up images of women wearing orthopedic shoes.  Taylor, Kennedy, Whitney, Bailey & Blair conjure an image of the prettiest, most popular girls in school today.    

With the wisdom that comes with hindsight, I know that my childhood desire to become Stephanie, Lisa or Jill was a lack of confidence.  As a child, I closely resembled the beautiful women in my family who told me that I looked just like them when they were little.  I was pleased with these comparisons.  I knew there was hope for me.  I held on to their compliments and this hope like a life preserver.  I eventually grew out of the requisite adolescent awkward stage and became a tall, confident woman proud of her name and her uniqueness.  So confident that I took unknowing fashion risks in college.  At a reunion, a male friend reminded me about a winter hat that I wore throughout my college years.  "JC, I admired your self confidence in college.  You're the only person on campus who could have gotten away with wearing that funny looking hat with the purple ball on top.  You wore that hat all the time!  But you pulled it off because you were so self confident," he smiled.   I laughed and smiled back.  I wasn't trying to make a statement and didn't think the hat was odd or funny looking, I was just trying to keep my big head warm, and it was the only hat that fit without giving me a headache.   I decided to skip the long explanation and let him think that I was a bold fashion risk taker and not a fashion mistake.  I still have that hat by the way.  I wonder if Stephanie, Lisa or Jill would have been confident enough to wear that hat!   What's in a name?  Hopefully, adequate measures of confidence, self esteem, kindness and courage are sprinkled in your name.  If not, start adding them to your recipe, they're free.