Name Games

From a very young age, I grew up watching "The Young & the Restless." I won't divulge the details of how that guilty pleasure came about, but from 5th grade on through college, if I was ever home at 11:00 a.m., I made it a point to catch up on the lives of those in Genoa City. Surprisingly, not much had changed.

One thing that will always stick with me from my stint with soap operas was the ridiculous use of romantic and elaborate names:

Victor Newman and Nikki Reed and their children Victoria and Nicholas Newman. 
Christine "Cricket" Blair and her relationships with Phillip Chancellor III and Danny Romalotti. 
Isabella Williams. 
Michael Baldwin.
And the list goes on.

It's no wonder then that I took such a liking to the Soap Opera Name Game I learned in high school. It's really something of an ice breaker. The game goes like this:

Let's pretend you are going to join a soap opera as a new character. How do you choose your cast name? I believe this formula to be 90% reliable. It is as follows:




For example: If your name was Judy Marie Smith and you lived on Lozier Lane, your soap opera name would be Marie Lozier.

All that is to say, for the last 6 months, Andrew and I have been Stephen and Danielle Greene. Not bad. Personally, I think it just screams good-looking philanthropic power couple. 

Well, as I mentioned earlier, Andrew and I have been in the process of moving from Augusta to Savannah. We decided early on we didn't want to play the renting game anymore so we would just buy. As in buy a house. As in lock ourselves into a mortgage payment for essentially the rest of our lives. It was an intimidating process.

Of the many properties we saw, I couldn't help applying the Soap Opera Name Game to each and every house. Did I want to be Danielle Laurel Hill? Or Danielle Ivey? I knew I didn't want to be Danielle Hwy 144...but choosing a house is really difficult. How do you pick the "right" one? How do you know if the house you like is the one you should buy...or what if a better one comes along later? So in true adolescent style and in my fear of commitment, I often resorted to this name game. Eventually, after weeks of searching, it came down to two names: Danielle Bristol or Danielle Savannah.

And I'm pleased to say that on Thursday, we officially changed our name to The Bristols:



I'll be honest, Danielle Bristol sounds slightly more...bratty, but I'm pretty in love with our new house. We spent the weekend unpacking boxes. This was more exciting than normal because our stuff from Oregon finally arrived. It was like Christmas. A person can forget how much stuff they actually own.

Soooo back to that name game tangent that seemingly has nothing to do with the fact that we just bought our first house, I'm always looking for a good soap opera name. I think it says a lot about a person's alter ego. At one point in her life, Karyn was Virginia Apple. It's not hard to figure out what that character would be like. My friend Mandy grew up as Rae Shady. Again, I think the name speaks for itself.

Unfortunately, if you currently live on Corban's campus, you are sort of disqualified from the game. Sorry Kari, but anything Deer Park Drive would never cut it in Genoa City. Not even Esther Deer Park.

I'm dying to know any noteworthy soap opera names out there -- I think it says a lot about a person. Are you the good girl? The rich one? The heartbreaker? A plain jane? Inquiring minds want to know.

More from the Bristols soon...