Life In-Between: What's In A Name?

Hello. My name is Andi (Andrea) and this is the story of my life in-between. What does that mean? Well, my whole life I’ve felt like I was living in-between different groups and different realities. Let me explain. First, let’s start with my name. My name is Andrea. My family has always called me Andrea. However, I started going by Andi sometime in high school. I really don’t remember why. I played around with the spelling until I settled on Andi. It just felt better than Andy or Andie. Only a few friends called me Andi in high school. Most people still only knew me as Andrea. In college everyone knew me as Andrea. In fact, when a high school friend called my apartment and asked for Andi (this was during the age of shared landlines) my roommates had no idea who she was talking about. After college I became Andi again.  At work everyone knew me as Andrea. When I got involved in social justice work everyone met me as Andi. If I am dealing with professionals (doctors, contractors, lawyers, etc.) I tend to always introduce myself as Andrea.
When I meet someone new for the first time, I always hesitate trying to figure out how to introduce myself. I want to introduce myself as Andi but sometimes I feel silly and use Andrea instead. If I do say Andi, I always immediately follow it up with Andrea.  It’s such a weird thing to have anxiety about.
To be clear, my name choice has nothing to do with any gender identities. I am female. I always have been, and I have never felt any pull towards any other gender identity.  Rather, I think it is more of a pull towards different parts of myself. As Andrea, I have always been the shy, quite, not cool girl who was often overlooked.  Always on the edges, but not really part of the group. As Andi, I always felt more confident. I know who Andi is.  She is someone who deeply cares about everyone and isn’t afraid to speak out about injustice.  Andi is more comfortable showing her true self to others, and she understands her people will love her no matter what. She’s still not cool and she loves that.  Andrea sometimes feels like she can’t always freely speak her mind. She has to be responsible, respectful, and vanilla.  Andi is passionate, determined, and a kaleidoscope of color. This is a realization I had right now, as I began writing this piece. I never fully connected the different sides of myself to the two names.  I find it fascinating and I’m going to spend some time thinking more about that. Living in-between Andrea and Andi, I’ve obviously given some thought to names. Given names, chosen names, nicknames.  Some of us have been given names with deep meaning, whether it is the literal meaning of the name, a family name that has been passed down, the name of a meaningful person or place, etc. I always considered my middle name special because it is my aunt/godmother’s name.  My first name never held any great meaning for me. My last name was always so, so special to me.  I grew up around my dad’s large, extended Italian family and I loved my last name. When I got married, I really didn’t want to change it. My husband didn’t want to get married if I didn’t change it (don’t worry, he’s evolved a lot since then). Ultimately, I decided I wanted to have the same last name as any future children I might have so I changed it.  However, my maiden name is still very close to my heart. All of my kids know it and appreciate it as part of their identities as well. Over the past few years I’ve gotten really into genealogy. I’ve done a bunch of work on my family tree.  I discovered I have a fourth great-grandfather who had the same exact first and last name as me. Andrea is a common name for males in Italy. This relative was born around 1775 in Italy.  This discovery gave me a new appreciation for my name. I’m not the first to carry it. I’m sure there were probably others before him with the same name, but I haven’t been able to dig back any farther to find out. How strange that someone born roughly 200 years before me that I know nothing about could give me a sense of connection to my name. I sometimes wonder if he was smiling down on me when I was born and christened with the name Andrea.  Connections are all around us, even if we don’t know it.