Nicole Dowdy Professor Raymond English 1103 1 October 2013 WP #5 History of Names My full name is Nicole Cristina Dowdy,

and my mother picked this name out for me before I was born. She fell in love with the name Nicole because she heard a mother calling her child by that name and thought it was the prettiest name. My mother picked the middle name Cristina because it was her middle name, but it is not run down from the family. Finally my last name Dowdy, of course, comes from my dads side of the family. Nobody changed the spelling of my name to make it special they just kept the most common spelling, and my mom kept the spelling of my middle name the same as hers. I believe that Shia Saide LaBeouf is a very uncommon name of a famous actor. His name was passed down from his grandfather who was a comedian. His first name is derived from Hebrew shai Yah, meaning 'gift of God'. The star blames his grandmother for changing the family name, and no one thought to reference what Shia La Beouf might mean in other languages. He explains, "It's a constant day to day struggle. My name's spelled wrong. My grandmother was a beatnik lesbian in the 50s, who hated her family and decided to change the spelling of her name, so it's misspelled (http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2007/05/29/shia_la_beouf_agonizes_over_m eaning_of_h).