Pearl Legate. Now read it aloud.
When she was a young woman, my mom’s paternal grandmother, Pearl Lyle, met a man named Russell Legate. They fell in love and married, and she took his last name. Her new name was Pearl Legate.
Say that out loud.
Now, say it again faster.
If I gave that name to a character in a novel or short story, some of my readers would probably roll their eyes and think, “C’mon. Couldn’t he think of something more realistic?â€
The preacher at her funeral didn’t have any problem finding jokes to make.
With a last name like Church, Megan and I won’t have any problem sabotaging our children’s social lives with cutesy names:
Christian Church
Mercy Church
Hope Church
Boring Church
Charismatic Church
Idonwannagodo Church
If any good ideas come to you, be so kind as to leave them in the Comments section. Maybe we’ll make you a godparent.
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