At one point before I was born, my mom came across the word Salmonella. She thought it was a beautiful name. Fortunately, she was inspired by the movie Romeo and Juliet and decided on a J-name.

My name Jennifer used to be very popular. According to the Baby Wizard (a magical thing that entertains me as much as the new google maps/craigslist – you type in a name and it shows the ups and downs over decades through a graph), my name used to be on top of its game in the seventies. By what? I don\’t even know. I mean nowadays there\’s the J-Lo, the Hewiit, the Connelly, the Garner. So how did my name fall from being number one to now a 38. Ouch.

And yet, I rarely run into another Jennifer now. I didn\’t have many classes where I was referred to as Jennifer N. The only time of confusion was during my freshman year in Berkeley when I had a roommate named Jennifer. This is where I started differentiating myself. I was Jenn was two ns. She was Jen with one n. Most Jennifers don\’t like two ns. But I need two to stay perfectly balanced.