…you order an ice cream cake from the Dairy Queen, you specifically said “Cindy” would be picking it up, and when you get there, “Sydney” is scrawled in black felt pen on the plastic cover (and a smiling teenager is passing you the cake). (She’s never heard the name Cindy).
…you take in your watch to have the battery replaced, say “Cindy” will return in ten minutes, and the twenty-something clerk frowns at you and asks, “Sydney?”
…you check in on American politics and realize John McCain’s wife is named Cindy, and you’re pretty sure she’s over forty, too.
…you realize Richard Gere and Kevin Costner both divorced their Cindys years and years and a light age ago…and you remember that you liked them because they married Cindys (smart men). (at the time).
…”Sydney” to you is the name of a 60-year-old skinny balding guy with red hair and glasses, who looks an awful lot like Woody Allen or that guy who got ate by one of the dinosaurs in the original Jurassic Park movie (I think while he was going to the can?), whereas “Sydney” to your sons is a hot chick in a short skirt.
…when you sign your emails, half the time you type “Cidny” and have to backspace and correct yourself.
…you’re considering taking Sydney as a pen name if you ever write YA, so you can be cool, too.
…you decide Sidney Crosby has a girly name.
LOL – I’d never really noticed. So the name Cindy is now no longer popular? Love the Sidney Crosby comment *g*
Oh, yeah, the name Cindy hasn’t been popular for decades. However, now adult women are named Sydney, not just babies, which means I’m really old!
I’ll know I’m ancient when Cindy comes back in as a trendy baby name. Ie. my grandmother’s name was Clara. That went out as a baby name years and years and decades and a half-century ago. They all became Claire/Clare. Now a friend back east tells me babies are getting named Clara again.
When I hear Sydney I just think of Australia…
Nobody names their kid Melissa anymore either. Not that I care, because that’s not *my* name…
Damn, I forgot about Australia! Don’t know why Sydney doesn’t remind me of Down Under, but it doesn’t.
Funny how names fall into and out of favour. As a Mike, I was born at the tail end of the huge wave of “Mikes”. There were only ever two of us in the class. A few grades earlier there were often as many as 4.
Now my step-Grandson is named Gavin…… Which I think is starting to make the come back. On the other hand, they gave him the middle name “Samwise”. If (when) they give us a Granddaughter, I wonder if she will have a middle name Arwen. Or perhaps Rosie.
Clara – yeah, that’s a nice name 🙂 I also like Emma and Emily (my god-daughter is Emily). And name trends are fascinating to watch. There aren’t a whole lot of Teresas around, at least not in North American – especially with my spelling. Even my grandmother used to forget and spell it with an “h”!
Hi Mike,
LOL on the Samwise. I rarely hear the name Gavin. But, yes, names go in and out of favour. A friend named her girl Madeleine. When my boys were born, the name was more likely to be Madison. Girl names seem to be leaning away from the trendy and back toward the traditional. Olivia, etc.
Teresa,
See, Clara to me is an “old” name – my grandmother died 18 years ago. I love it, but it sounds “old.” If I’d had a girl, her middle name was going to be Ciara – a combination of Cindy and Clara in my mind.
As for the spelling of your name, I prefer it without the h (apologies to my pen name’s editor, who spells it with the h). I have a heroine in a book I’m marketing right now named Tess, short for Teresa. I tried typing Teresa with the h, but it doesn’t look right to me.
I’m pretty sure Mr. G. would approve of Samwise.
Yes, no doubt!