What's in a Name?
Robert-Rob-Robby-Bobby-Bob, What's your name again?

Instead of going the route to use the various search engines to tell you the meaning of this name, I'd like to show the challenges with my given name.

When I hit the 30 mark, I decided to shed my childhood name of endearment Bobby.
Bobby was an above average student, not a scholar by any account. He was athletic, a four sport letterman in High School. Bobby was kind; he chose to pick on the bullies who made sport of his debate team friends. The same bullies would pick on the mentally challenged kids and the only fully out homosexual kid. My high school was a small county school in rural Virginia. Bobby was no angel, but he admired those who carried on during difficult times. He was born to young teenage parents; his father was a serviceman who traveled throughout the world for up to a year at a time. Bobby's mother was hooked on heroin by the time he, himself, was a teenager. Bobby developed a pattern of sticking up for the little guy, beginning with his mouthy kid brother - Chris.

At 29 besides my official name of Robert, I'd never gone by any other name except Bobby so Rob was born. As I walked the halls of Duke University to my research laboratory office, my boss stopped me before we entered the doorway. He pointed to the name plate and asked me how I wanted my name to appear. I milled over this question for a few seconds as my eyes shifted back from him to the doorway, then I said "Rob." Rob was my new name. The doorplate, office voicemail, and my university email signature all told me this was my new name. This name shift confused my family, most notably - my wife and kid brother, they were both very upset. They told me around the same time, to them my name would always be Bobby.

Even after publishing -in the name of Rob- I still find myself searching for my identity. Two years after Rob was born Chris, my kid brother, was killed by a drunken driver. This not only threw my life upside down, I chose to write poetry rather than work on diseases such as AIDS and SARS. I went back to science to make a little money that would fund my creative side, but failed miserably of course, it was that Rob guy that had failed. So guess what? You got it, time for a new name.

So, I'm going to be a poet. I bet Pushkin was known as Sasha before he became Alexander. I know Bukowski was known to all around him as Hank. Would Billy Shakespeare be as well known as

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