B3 How I Got My Name

I have heard a couple different stories of how I got my name, they all had some of the same things in common but each story varied a little. I am going to share the story that I liked best. Here is a few important pieces of information you need to know; first of all I was born in December a week before Christmas, snow was logical. Second my Dad was in the Army. Now he can't verify this because he has passed away and my Mom will give a different version of how I was named though it is typically the same story just without the added drama, The one person who could probably tell it best is my Uncle Robert and I would love to hear his version because he was the other one that was there.

It was a cold winter night in Georgia and my Mom was in labor, My Dad was in NY or RI or somewhere up north with the military. He barely made it home to see my birth because he said they cancelled flights because of the snow. Makes sense to me but my dad also said my mom was mad and accused him of being at a strip club instead of at the airport and that's why he really missed his flight, but he said that was not true. My mom never said any such thing in her story though, which makes me wonder if he had a guilty conscience, ha. Anyway my Dad got there just in time and my mom wrote on the paper work Tina Marie. My Dad said he was going to take the paperwork down to records. My Uncle Robert went with him and this is the part that everyone agrees on...When they were in the elevator my Dad scratched out Tina Marie and wrote Honey for my first name and said, "I don't know what to give her for a middle name," and he contemplated West because the old TV show Honey West but he really didn't want my middle name to be West. My Uncle said "If you are going to name her Honey why not make her middle name Bee." Without a second thought he wrote in Bee for my middle name and my Dad and Uncle turned in my paperwork for my birth certificate. Now there are questions, If my Dad was at a strip club was I named after a stripper or was I named after the show Honey West? I may never know.☺

Oh I'm not done, my Mom still didn't know what they had done, huh. So they take me home the next day and my Dad said he had to go somewhere for ten days but then he would have time off. He said as he was leaving the next morning he told my Mom to stop calling me Tina because that wasn't my name, that my name was Honey Bee not Tina Marie, and he left. They were living in military housing but my Mom was stuck with my older sister who was already having a meltdown because I was born and who locked my Mom out of the house because she wasn't bring a baby home, and at some point tried to crawl in my crib and strangle me, but that's another story. My Mom had no car, no way to go anywhere until my Dad returned. So for the next ten days she refused to call me Honey or Honey Bee, she just called me Baby. Ten days later my Dad returns and my Mom is raising hell over my name. So my Dad said okay we will go change it back, they went down there within the next day or so and records had already released my paperwork and my birth certificate was already filed. They told my parents they could change it but because it was 13 days after the fact and not less than 10 days, that they would have to go to court and file these papers to change it back and it would cost about $2,000.00. My parents said nope for that amount of money her name will stay Honey Bee.

Now I don't know how factual all that is and like I said I will probably never know all the facts but some of them are consistent in both parents stories. To this day my Mom calls me Honey Bee not Honey. Most of my friends from school call me Honey Bee. It wasn't until high school that I dropped the Bee and requested that people call me Honey and some of my lifelong friends refused and still call me Honey Bee to this day and that's okay with me, the are entitled. Anyone I've met after that time knows me as Honey, unless you know my alter ego.