It's 2 m's and 2 i's. Get it right.

I did a previous post on the 4 names I identify with (It's a link...go read it) and, upon re-reading it, I realized I skipped a very important part of my name: the spelling!

Most people don’t get to choose the spelling of their name. If your parents gave you a funky spelling, too bad, you’re stuck with it. But there are some of us who HAVE to be so unique that we create our own spellings. I am, of course, one of those people.

In the second grade, I was dubbed “Kimmie” and I spelled it the traditional, cutesy way with an “ie.” After maturing two whole years as Kimmie, I decided I wanted to try it out with a “y” instead. I liked they way I could make the “y” turn into a kind of underline when I was signing my name. I also liked how, if I felt like it, I could loop the “y” and make a happy face in the loop. I was in fourth grade. Don’t judge me too harshly.

Then, in seventh grade, on the first day of computer class, I was writing my name and decided I wanted something a little more exotic. Something a little more sophisticated. I still wanted to be “Kimmy” but I wanted to be a little something different. (I should have know there was something wrong with me then…) So, while I was making my nametag tent, I wrote “Kimmi.”

I thought it was so cool and unique and I wrote it EVERYWHERE. Everything I owned said “Kimmi” at least 5 times. I was a walking advertisement for myself. I also felt so cool when someone asked how to spell my name. “It’s Kimmi, with two m’s and two I’s.”

After many years, I have kept this spelling. I get people asking me a lot why I still go by Kimmi, and not Kim or Kimberly, because most 25 year olds don’t keep their childhood nicknames. But I do. What can I say? I’m unique.

Plus, then when Barney Stinson (played brilliantly by Neil Patrick Harris) makes the following statement, I can laugh a little bit harder than everyone else:

“Don’t even get me started on girls whose names should end in y, but instead end in i. Those girls are like roller coasters. You gotta wait in a long line but once you get up there you hold on for dear life and hope you don’t drop your keys.” –Barney Stinson, How I Me Your Mother “The Three Days Rule”

No truer words were ever spoken.