Wednesday, May 2, 2012

What's in a name?

My blog always seems to be ever evolving.  In the past I have struggled to find a home for my blog and now it seems that I am struggling to find a name. At first, I just added: Living with Chiari, Loving across miles, Creating for therapy to my Life on Skype name. I have even changed the pages across the top of my blog to reflect this change.  I have gone through all my posts and listed them on each of their separate pages. That way anyone can easily find the posts about Chiari, the posts about my love with my adorable Filipino fiance who is immigrating to America or the posts about all the crafty things my creative, crazy brain makes. 

Shalunya
Life on Skype
Shalunya & Boyet
ChiariShalunya

But I have now decided to just go with Shalunya & Boyet.   Part of the reason for this change is that I knew Life on Skype would never be permanent.  After all, Arnold is immigrating here; therefore, I won't always be living on Skype. I don't want to use Chiari in my title because I try to remind myself that Chiari is just part of who I am, not all of who I am.  

"Shalunya" - [sha-loon-ya], noun, origin - Russian 
Naughty little girl who belongs in a corner, mischievous little girl who gets in trouble

"Boyet" - [boy-et], noun, origin - Filipino
Name by which my fiance is called by his entire family


Since I am trying to build readership for my blog my brand must become clear.  Now this is just a personal blog, I am not really a 'brand'.  But I need to be sending a clearer message in order to find more readers that aren't related to me.  First and foremost, this blog is just about my personal life and the things that are important to me. So it will never be pigeonholed into any one category.  But I do want to make it easier for my readers to find the information they are looking for. 

I have starting a Facebook page for my blog and this is what inspired my name change.  Since I knew that Life on Skype was never permanent I did not want to list my permanent name on my Facebook page as Life on Skype.  Adding all that extra stuff just seems verbose; LIFE ON SKYPE: Living with Chiari, Loving across miles, Creating for therapy. 

{Conversation in my head} Quit being so flighty. But my name needs to reflect who I am. Says who? You could call it 'Crazy' cause that's what you are. Well, true. I know that but I don't want to convey THAT message. Seriously, you just need to pick something...anything! But it needs to be meaningful. It needs to make a statement. The only statement that you are making is that you can't make up your mind. No, I never intended to make that statement. Just decide and stand firm. You can do this. 


Shalunya & Boyet

So this is what I have firmly decided.  After all, Boyet is a much larger part of my life than Chiari or Skype or being creative.  

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