The Monicaness of the Poles

Monica has never been a popular name in my lifetime. Never in my years of schooling did I have to go by "Monica W." due to the overwhelming number of other Monicas in the classroom. The year before I was born it peaked at #39 in the U.S., but it's been in a healthy dive ever since -- and the Lewinsky thing didn't do us any favors. And no, Friends didn't help either (especially if you're a girl with two bffs named Rachel and Phoebe, but that's another post entirely): Monica dropped in popularity by more than 100 spots on the Social Security Administrations list of baby names during the show's 10-year run.

Where am I going with this? I am now in a land of Monicas. Or, more accurately, a land of Monikas. I assume they look at someone who spells 'Monica' with a C the same way I view the douchebags who spell their kids names Maddisyn or Kevvyn (my spelling would be pronounced Mon-eet-za, technically, so maybe I should adopt the K). There seem to be only a few names per gender here; if you're female you're Monika, Ania, Marta, Dorota, Magda or Aneta, and if you're male you're Pavel, Bartek, Dawid, Tomasz or Janusz.

The Poles like to name their tots after saints -- being that they are weapons-grade Catholics -- so Monica makes sense. Poor Saint Monica sure had a hell of a time: her pagan husband Patritius was a dick, and her son Augustine a lazy bastard. She spent most of her life following Augustine around trying to make him a Catholic. Augustine finally cracked, and Monica is seen as the patron saint of "difficult marriages, disappointing children, victims of adultery or unfaithfulness, victims of abuse and conversion of relatives" for putting up with all that family fuckery. Is this what inspired my mother to name me Monica? Knowing I would be saddled with a family filled with loadies and screw-ups? No. "I hate names that can be shortened into nicknames," was Grace's succinct explanation.

Hope everyone enjoyed that little slice of religious history and Monicaness this Sunday. I'm going to go worship at the alter of the Gdynia beach.