Andrea’s Art

My new series is called The Name Project, where I do in-person, brief interviews about peoples’ names along with my photograph of them. Names are my inspiration and I hope to share with you photographs of a variety of people and some fun stories about their names.

The Name Project: Andrea

Everyone should be so lucky to have an Andrea in their life, especially this one. She likes to call a spade a spade, so to speak, which is not an uncommon trait for people sharing this name. Roy Feinson says that Andrea’s, “consider themselves to be realists (rather than pessimists) who are simply being candid about the state of the world…they feel it is their duty to tell the truth.”

I pointed out to Andrea that there are many ways to pronounce the name. Some are AHHN-dree-uh. Others are ahhhn-DRAY-uh. To this, she responds, “I’m Andrea. Like the word “and” followed by rea.” She adds that most people with this name pronounce it like hers.

“I never really thought much about my name. It just is what it is.”

She explains that she met an Andrea once who went by Drea (pronounced dree-uh). “I loved that. I wish I would have thought of something like that, but at a certain point it’s strange to ask people to call you something different. I think it’s like Prince. He changed his name and it just exposed vulnerabilities. You know? Like he must feel insecure or something to go to that kind of trouble and make such a big deal about it.”

Her mom wanted to name her Antonia and call her Toni, but her dad didn’t want that. He just knew he needed to name his daughter Andrea and call her Andi. At least they were in agreement that their daughter’s name would begin with an “A.” I asked Andrea if people call her Andi. “Some of my friends and family do, but most people call me Andrea.”

“I really love my middle name and have thought a lot about how I’d like to go by that. My middle name is Lauren and I did use that in the name of my business. I’m a hair stylist and I named my shop Lauren Scott. It’s a very cool name for a business.”

Andrea considers her work as a stylist more than just a job and she wrote this poem and displays it in the office to help others understand more about her.

Andrea is an artist and hair is her handiwork.

Andrea says this about names, “I think names are important but your name just is what it is. Deal with it.”