this is very strange for me, because all the men in my family are named Starratt.I laughed and said,
this is weird for me, because I’ve never met anyone with my name!
We had our picture taken. Whatever happened to that picture, I’ll never know. But it’s something I’ll always remember.
It is a family name, if you hadn’t guessed by now. My parents thought I was going to be a boy, and had all of these boy’s names picked out. So when I was born, they had to find a girl’s name. With my dad being southern, and family names being of utmost importance in that culture, a few names were suggested: Rebecca, Sarah, Monimia, and Starratt. There may have been others, but I don’t know. All I have to say is, I’m glad they passed on Monimia. And I’m glad they chose Starratt. Yes, it was hard growing up with an unusual name, but it’s been well worth it.
I never had any keychains, license plates, or anything with my name on it that wasn’t handmade by a family friend when I was a kid. People always asked me where my name came from, how it was spelled, what it meant, etc. I could answer the first two, but never the last until I was in college when I found an old, dusty book of surnames. Perfect! I could finally find out what my name meant. Turns out it’s Scottish. Not surprising, since most of my heritage lies in the British Isles. What did interest me is that its origins lie in a lowland town in Ayrshire called Stairaird, and roughly translated it means “bridge over bogs.” Erm, okay. Although I guess it’s a very useful name, considering there are lots of moors (a.k.a., bogs) in Scotland. But it’s not what I thought it would mean. Well, I never had any idea what it meant, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with…bogs.
Anyway, this is the story of my name. I hope to find more like mine on the Interwebs, because like I said…there’s always a story to everyone’s name.
