Tammy

Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash

My birthday is next week. Fifty-four years ago, all nine pounds of me entered this world, and my mother looked down into my fat, baby face and dubbed me Tammy. I’m not a big fan of my name, mostly because it’s not a shortened form of Tamara; nope, it’s just Tammy, and as an adult, I’ve always felt like I have a little girl’s name. If it were a shortened form of Tamara, I’d be using Tamara now (or maybe even Mara) — my good friend, Silvia, often calls me Ta-Mara anyway, so one could argue that I do use different forms of Tammy from time to time.

Yet, my name is and remains simply Tammy. This, paired with my equally simple middle name of Sue, still sounds, to my ears, like the name of a little girl and not the name of a grown-ass woman.

However, it is my name, and I use it proudly on my books and other things I write. I could have opted for a pen name, but I didn’t, because I am Tammy, and I want my readers to know that I wrote the things I wrote.

My mother chose to name me Tammy because of the song “Tammy” sung by the incomparable Debbie Reynolds in a 1957 movie called “Tammy and the Bachelor.” It was my mom’s favorite song, so I’m honored to be named after a song she loved. Here is Debbie Reynolds singing this live on stage in 2003: Debbie Reynolds singing "Tammy"

While I’ve heard the song many times, I’ve yet to see the movie. I need to remedy that, but I have viewed various snippets and the trailer, which you can view here: Tammy and the Bachelor movie trailer

Interestingly, though, Debbie Reynolds’ character’s name isn’t actually Tammy. It’s Tambrey — Tammy is short for that. I think I would have liked being named Tambrey — then I could have used Tammy, Brey, Tambrey, or even just Tam. I do sometimes just use Tam now, but that’s about the only way of shortening Tammy.

Other Tammy movies followed that first one:

I haven’t seen them either, but I have seen (and own) the Tammy movie that fits my personality a little better:

While I’d never rob a fast food store, and I am much smarter than this particular Tammy, I still see a bit of myself in her antics. Here’s the trailer for it, too, if you’ve never seen the movie: Tammy movie trailer

When I was young, my mom told me that the word “Tammy” meant “perfection.” Uh, nope. Not even close. I’d prefer to keep believing that because, after all, I’m the epitome of perfection — ha, ha — but since I’m a linguist, the truth about my name must come out. “Tammy,” by definition, is a type of cloth used to make dresses and linings and undergarments. Yep, I’m a cloth used to make underwear! If that isn’t perfection, I don’t know what is.

Dictionaries say that “tammy” probably came from “tamis.” “Tamis” is a cloth mesh used as a strainer. Hmm, undergarments or a strainer? Not sure which is more appealing. Let’s pretend it still means “perfection,” shall we?

Names are interesting things, aren’t they? We don’t choose them. Our parents do, and then we’re saddled with them for life. True, many people do choose to change their names for various reasons, but that original one tends to follow them through life in one way or another. It’s impossible to look at your newborn child and pick a name that’s going to suit him or her for life. My own daughter isn’t super happy with the name I gave her, but at least she can shorten it to something she does prefer.

That’s my only real complaint about my name. I simply wish my mom had named me Tamara. She could have called me Tammy anyway, but now I’d have that option of using Tamara, which, to my ears, sounds more adult than Tammy does.

Since I ended up teaching Spanish for three decades and traveling abroad a few times with students, Tammy caused some hilarity for one group in Spain. The letter A in Spanish has a consistent “ahh” sound, so every time our guide in Spain said my name, it sounded like he was saying Tommy instead. My students got a real kick out of that, and it took a while to live it down once we’d returned to Nebraska. While I didn’t necessarily mind being called Tommy by that guide (because I understood his difficulty pronouncing Tammy), it brought back memories of being called Tommy Sewer Marshmallow as a child by some class bullies who thought it was a hilarious take on all three of my names — letting me know, apparently, that I was somewhat of a tomboy, I smelled bad, and I was roly-poly like a marshmallow. Since I was foolish and let them know I didn’t like being called that, they kept it up much longer than they would have otherwise, I imagine.

One thing I do like about my name is that hearing it brings up memories of my grandmother, Eunice, who called me Tammaleenawillameena — not really sure how to spell that, so we’ll just go with that. She was my favorite person, and I loved hearing her call me that.

Going back to the movie, “Tammy and the Bachelor,” I find it very interesting that Tammy’s last name is Tyree. My next book, that will be coming out in November I hope, is called “Trouble on Tybee.” Why I randomly chose Tybee Island, Georgia, as the setting of this novel is beyond me. This is the photo that will grace its cover.

My daughter thinks I chose Tybee because I like to use the letter T in my titles, and she could be right about that; however, I think it’s quite odd that I randomly chose an island with almost the same name as the last name of my namesake. Until today, I didn’t even know that Tyree was the last name of Tammy in the movie.

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Tammy Marshall