My cousin, Rhonda, drove me crazy when I was growing up. She was older, and thus, automatically cooler. She lived in Alaska – another cool thing – and came to spend most summers with us.

She could drive and had clothes I wanted to wear, something made more difficult by the fact she was about one foot shorter than I was.

And, one summer, she met a boy here and had an official boyfriend, who even gave her a promise to be promised ring before she headed back home. He went with us as we took her back to the airport, where he gave her roses and a balloon. As a spindly 13-year-old who saw no such romantic creativity in my future, I was in awe.

Nothing ever became of that short-lived romance, but it was far more than I had, so I was even more jealous.

And, more so than anything else, Rhonda had her very own song. She would play the Beach Boy’s &8220;Help Me Rhonda&8221; at the drop of a hat and sing along with the words.

&8220;Help me Rhonda, yeah, get her out of my heart…&8221; she would hum.

I hated the fact she had a song and I did not. I didn’t even have anything close. There was one song out that had the phrase &8220;ledo&8221; in it – or at least something that sounded like it – and I tried to adopt it as my own, but that didn’t exactly work.

I tried two others.

&8220;I think I like &8216;Girls Just Want to Have Fun,’&8221; I said. &8220;That could be my song. Or maybe &8216;The Glamorous Life,’ by Sheila E. I like that song, too.&8221;

It wasn’t the same. Why couldn’t my parents have considered this when naming me? There were plenty of options available. Why, in 1982 alone there were songs about girls named Diane, Rosanna, Jenny and Gloria!

There were plenty of other options, too. If they’d only looked at the top 40 the year I was born they could have picked Julie, Candida, Rosemary, Cecelia or at least Cracklin Rose (OK, forget that last one.)

Or, even further back, they could have opted for any of the song names from the 60s, such as Laurie, Wendy, Ruby, Carrie Ann or, in a pinch, Proud Mary.

Let’s not forget the 50s, the generation they grew up in. They could have opted for Maybellene, Marianne, Diana or Susie, for the girl who stayed out too late and wouldn’t wake up.

But they didn’t. Rhonda got the name with the song to go with it and it’s bothered me to this day. To be cool, you had to have a theme song and I didn’t.

It worked out, OK, though. It’s been nice to have a unique name, even if it doesn’t carry a tune along with it. My parents could have thought of this, though. I think Sherona has a nice ring to it…

Leada Gore is the publisher of the Hartselle Enquirer and the Madison County Record. She is the former managing editor of the Reporter. She can be reached at mailto:leada.gore@hartselleenquirer.com