A woman of many names.

I am a woman of many names. First and foremost, my name is Tonje (pronounced To-n-ye).

*MEANING OF THE NAME TONJE*

New thunder, flower

There you have it. My sometimes thunderish temper suits my name very well if I may say so. (I can't for the life of me think of why I would be associated with a flower, though.)

Now, let me introduce you to a few of my other names:

I once had a pen pal named Ted. This was way back in the good, old days when you would actually pick up a pen, handwrite a letter and send it off through snail mail. Ages ago, I know. It was an exciting ordeal, though, especially because Ted was American. That may not seem like a big deal to you, but to a giggly, big haired, teenage Norwegian girl it was. My best friend, Nina, found it equally exciting, and she actually had the fortunate opportunity of meeting Ted in person while vacationing in the States. Upon her return home she reported that he had referred to me as.... TONCH. Go figure....

In the early 90s, I dated Mike. This was during the time when Toni Braxton told the world that she would never "Breathe Again". This inspired Mike, and he started calling me Toni Tone. Ok.....

My name was slaughtered a couple of other times in the States as well. While working for Marriott, I once received an e-mail that started like this: "Hi, Tongue!" Nice. Do people replace their brain with spell check? Just listen to this little incident: I gave a talk in church, and printed on the Sacrament meeting program was my name, Tonga. What in the world?

To be honest, I don't care much for any of these variations of my name, and have decided to stick with the name my parents gave me, their new thunder, 36 years ago. Today there are about 6,500 of us in Norway. In case you were wondering.