Writing prompt 5:

Throughout my explorations, I have found that religion plays a large role in naming

ceremonies. In the Hindu religion as well as the Islamic world there are specific days in which

you name your child, instead of our common practice of directly after birth. Something that is

common in European culture that has continued in America, as well as other places worldwide, is

the generational use of names. Personally, my middle name is my great-uncles name. My father

and grandfather all share the same middle name as me, Douglas. Another common practice is the

use of a double name which started in France, and continued along Catholicism through the

convocated fourth name given as a teenager.

My first name was one of two that was decided upon before birth. My parents decided to

keep the gender of all three of their kids secret until birth, so my name was either going to be

Stephanie or Matthew. Matthew was a suggestion by my grandfather because it is a biblical

name. Levi, one of the twelve apostles, supposedly wrote the first gospel in the new testament.

The profession of Levi was a tax collector, and known in the Hebrew community as

Mattityahu meaning "gift of Yahweh." Yahweh being another form of the Hebrew God, which

later was used as a form of submission into Christianity.

My last name, Davis, was once Davies which is from Wales. Davies means son of

David. After the crusades, many military soldiers adopted biblical names into new ones, such as

Davies. Then when my family came over to America, our name was changed from Davies to

Davis. Simply because of the pronunciation we lost contact with many of our family members

still coming over. This caused problems and a separation for many generations. Till my ancestors

meet up in Michigan, people moved from Canada and Pennsylvania, and created an apple farm.