Explaining Eikenboom

So. About the name.

Before we get into the heart of the matter, I should note that I put a great stock in names. Their meaning and their history are often so important, that I get stuck trying to start a story just because I can't find something that fits the character just so. It's seemingly never an option to just go with what sound good, it has to mean something, it has to describe part of the character. This obsession is mostly due to my own name.

It goes like this: I don't know the year, but I know the day. It was July 4*, and my great-grandparents** had just arrived in the U.S., having left Macedonia far behind. Now, they knew a little bit about names, such as what were "normal" names and that probably nobody would be able to pronounce their old Macedonian surname. So, they changed their last name to the much less foreign-sounding "Mike". (Which, amusingly, means I had a great-grandma Mike.) Fast-forward many many years, now. My mother is the geneaology nerd of the family. (There's one in every family. They might be hiding in a corner, possibly buried under piles of old journals and documents that have all gone yellow and smell slightly of boiled cabbage, but somewhere in the family tree there's a twig obsessed with catalouging the trunk.) So, I get named Michael after my ancestors. And that's that, really. From the first time I heard that story, I've put a great deal of importance in the history and meaning of names.

Well, that's enough of that, now about the new name. I'm afraid I'll have to tell another story from when I was a child. I'll try my best not to go into "back in my day" territory.

So, there I am, quite young and easily distracted, but always willing to listen to a story. The odds are good that I was mesmerized by a nearby ceiling fan. Anyway, my mother starts talking about my ancestors from Macedonia. She goes on about Alexander the Great. It's one of those stories you get told in the hopes that it will make you proud of your heritage and inspire confidence. (And was I ever in need of self-confidence! Why, a bowl of soggy swamp-flavored noodles could easily have beat me in a confidence competition.) She then talks about the oak tree. I'm told that the oak tree had great symbolism for the Macedonians, being a strong, unshifting object. (Today, I can find no indication if this was true, or just an old tale from the genealogy records.) When I'm older, I comment that it's also a great metaphor for certain relatives because it's so damn stubborn. But, for some reason, that symbolism stuck with me. My personal philosophy, or symobology, or spiritualism, or identity, or whatever I might call it always, always centers around an oak tree.

Eventually, I start to wonder a bit about the other side of my family. I never heard any stories, but I knew that it was mostly Dutch ancestry lurking around over there. I also like the Dutch language and the way it seems to flow. So, one day, I find an English-Dutch dictionary and look up "oak tree". And so I get "Eikenboom". Later, I decide to use it as my username, since none of the previous ones have ever really felt right. It was like a one-size-fits-all sweater versus one knit specifically for you - the first feels alright, but it's not quite right; while the latter is something that might seem a little strange to others, but it's so damn cozy that it doesn't matter.



* I know the date because EVERY TIME someone told this story, they mentioned that there were celebratory crowds waving U.S. flags as the ship came into the harbor. The Mikes thought it was in celebration of all the immigrants coming into the country. It was only later they realized it was really just part of the Independence Day celebrations...

** Or possibly great-great-grandparents. One of those. Either way, they were long gone by the time I first heard of 'em.