I named my second daughter Tesakiah -- Tesakiah Caroline Alexandra Harjo, to be exact and complete! It's pronounced like Hezakiah from the Bible.
In case you don't know and are interested, my other daughters are Emily Meredith Cheloteka (She-lote-ka) Harjo and Sara-Grace Isabella Shedachi (She-da-chi) Harjo. And while I'm over explaining: Tesakiah means "bright star", Cheloteka means "locust" or "sounds of the summer night", and Shedachi means "little sister" in Navajo.
"Tesakiah" is my own variation on a Harjo ancestor's name. There was a Seminole chief after whom a whole band of the Seminole tribe was named. His name was Tusakiah Harjo (pronounced Tusa-guy-a, actually). The name was mentioned frequently in the Harjo family.
When I was about 7 months pregnant, we went on a day trip to Harjo ancestral territory in Seminole County Oklahoma. We visited the decaying log ruins of one ancestor's home. We drove by the old family church and stomp dance grounds where each family had a little "summer house" they stayed in for week-long ceremonial gatherings. In the midst of all this family history, I pondered the name Tusakiah and it occurred to me: I could change the U to an E (Tusakiah to Tesakiah) and we could get "Tess" or "Tessa" out of it for short. That clenched it.
I LOVED the name! But I wrestled with whether I should strap a big, long, unusual name on my poor, unsuspecting, little baby. I soul-searched on it and I just had the strongest feeling that my baby, still unborn, wanted to be a Tesakiah and not Kamillah or Alexandra or Jessica or Allison or Melanie (other names we considered). And I was right! Tessa LOVES her name! Whew! And I just know that someday there will be lots of great-grandchildren with Tesakiah in their name somewhere who will talk about "Grandma Tesakiah" with awe and romanticized reverence!
The Chinese believe that every name has a certain amount of "chi" (luck or good fortune) and that all the people who share a particular name divide that name's chi among them. Therefore, if you are a "John", your chi is massively diluted. A "Winchester" would have considerably lesser dilution of his chi.
And then there's Tesakiah. As far as I know, she is the only Tesakiah on the planet. She has ALL the Tesakiah chi to herself. And the theory supports itseslf because she is very, VERY lucky!
On her 6th birthday, we were hanging out at ToysRUs and she won the in-store drawing for a Cabbage Patch dolls. That's our favorite example of "the Tesakiah luck". But there are more. She's called the winner of the Kentucky Derby a time or two. She can pull not one but TWO stuffed animals out of those darned claw machines where you put in 50 cents and futilely try to pick up well-wedged-in stuffed animals with a limp-gripping mechanical claw. Lucky things happen to her all the time. Luck just seems to follow her.
Yesterday I took Tessa with me to pair of realtor open houses. We saw two wonderful vintage houses, had a lovely lunch and a delicious dessert, enjoyed pleasant conversation with other realtors, and put my card in the drawing for a $50 prize. I do this sort of thing regularly. A free lunch and a cash drawing will get me to a realtor open house at least once a week. Plus there are multiple drawings at the monthly realtor board meeting and occasional in-office drawings. I have never won a thing. But -- you guessed it -- I had "the Tesakiah luck" with me yesterday and I won the $50 drawing! Hooray! Fifty dollars seems like $500 to me about now! I'm thrilled!
Now I'm extremely tempted to check Tessa out of school 3 or 4 days a week to go to realtor open houses with me! Do you think the school would understand that if she's a major household breadwinner? Or maybe she could pick some lottery numbers for me...
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