You know you’re awesome when your mom needs your advice
March 25, 2008 by Badbadivy
Dear Home-Ec 101,
In thirty five years of doing laundry, I have never made a mistake. That’s right, I have found the perfect way of doing laundry through a very complicated method of washing clothing by color and weight.
Except…well, today I did a load of tablecloths. One of them was red and another was white. They were both new, but I figured modern methods of dying surely would keep the red tablecloth from bleeding onto the white. Right? Wrong. Now I have a pink tablecloth and a red tablecloth. It’s a lovely pink tablecloth and not blotchy at all, but still. What should I do?
By the way, Ivy is not a great name. I Your mother named you [redacted] because it’s a beautiful and wonderful name. How was I your mother to know that every other mother in 1975 would also think it was a fabulous name? I Your mother wanted to name you [redacted] since I she was a wee little girl. Everyone else just stole my name from me. I mean, well, you know what I mean.
Oh, well, I your mother loves you anyway.
Signed,
Mystery Lady X
Ivy says:
Mom, I can tell it’s you by your email address. That’s okay, though. I Your daughter loves you anyway.
With any luck, you haven’t already dried your tablecloth. Both Rit and Carbona make dye removers. Rit’s is called Rit Dye Powder Color Remover and Carbona has the awesomely named Carbona Color Run Remover. Both can usually be found in the same section of a store that you would find dye. Usually this is by the laundry products although at one very random KMart I was at, the dye stuff was by the hardware. Both products will almost definitely work if you haven’t dried the tablecloth.
If you’ve already dried the tablecloth you can try these products, but your best bet would be just to enjoy your new pink tablecloth. It works for both Valentine’s Day and Easter! Congrats on your first laundry mistake, Mom. 
Of course, if you mom is right, and it was actually the most popular name in 1975, then it is easy to decipher what this mystery name actually is (I looked it up, but won’t post it in deference to your wishes).
Timing is everything, and I should have sent in for this hint a while back as my wife washed all my white t-shirts with a red one recently, so now I have all pink undershirts.
So, now are you going to change the tag line of this site to “What you wish you had taught your Mama?”
Jay, I’m sure you look fabulous in your pink undershirts! And I don’t know whether it is THE most popular name in 1975, but it’s definitely in the top 10. That narrows it down, I guess.
ugh. If it’s the same as mine, I’m sorry. It sucks to grow up with people all around you with the same name as you. Plus, assuming we have the same name, it has always bugged me that it has the same ending as a certain fallen archangel’s name. i was born in 85, but mom still claims she had no idea it was a common name…
Ironically, my mother said almost exactly the same thing when I complained about my name with the added disclaimer that they didn’t KNOW any other Heathers.
Sadly I was not a fan of the show Sex and the City and therefore had no idea that the name I chose for my son would also be one of the top names for his birth year.
I was looking at the top names for 1978 and Ivy’s real name was more popular than mine, but I suppose region has a lot to do with it. I never had more than one Ivy, but usually had at least two other Heathers in each class. I was so happy when I could finally go by Heather instead of Heather S.
http://names.mongabay.com/baby_names/1975.html
Top 20 for 1975-of course I was born a few years earlier but Jennifer was still up on the top. I like my name, and luckily I finally am in a place where I don’t know any other Jennifers in my circle of friends.
Finally.
Have I mentioned that took a long time?
Okay, this mystery is killing me. Jennifer? Lisa? Amy? Michelle?
Yeah, come on! You’re killin’ us! We won’t tell!
I was born in ‘76, and my mom SWEARS that she named me after the characters in Little Women (Amy Elizabeth, for Amy and Beth), and that it was only after Jimmy Carter was elected and his daughter was named Amy that everyone else started naming their kids Amy. She cites the fact that my sister is named Meg as further proof of Little Women, but there is no Jo.
I think she’s full of it. I named my kids Mary Grace (we call her “Mary Grace” - not likely to be in the top 10 any time soon) and Claire. Now I’m meeting a bunch of Claires…
And Amy’s comment is the exact reason I don’t dig my name. My name is ALSO Amy Elizabeth- yes, I was also named after Amy in Little Women although the Elizabeth part is after an aunt. AND my maiden name is Brown- talk about totally anonymous!
Alas, the secret is out. Y’all will still think of me as the ultra-cool Ivy though, right? Right???
Another ‘78 born Heather here. Guh! My mom also claims she did not know it would be such a popular name and named me after her childhood friend, Heather Menzies (of Piranha fame), saying that she never knew another “Heather” before and just always loved the name.
Middle name, you guessed it… Elizabeth!
Lol! So it’s not Jennifer? Awww… I was hoping we had that in common, but Amy Elisabeth is a much prettier name, even if it isn’t exactly original. I’m Jennifer Marie, and I don’t think either of those names sound very nice. My husband’s name is Daniel. Needless to say, we tried to choose unusual names for our daughters, though my firstborn’s name, Ariel, is turning up everywhere it seems. Haven’t met many Felicitys yet, though…
Thanks for letting us in on your little secret!
I have been blessed with a not very popular name. Only other Carol’s I have meet are much older then me. Not that I love my name, but I love not having to turn around, everytime someone calls another person wtih the same name.
I LOVE discussing names! Your secret is safe with us, Ivy!!
There are still parents naming their daughters Amy and Jennifer, I’ve noticed. When I was a teacher, there were lots of Laura-s. My parents went for sturdy classics - Margaret, Matthew, Melanie - and claimed they never tried to make them all start with M. ha.
But I’ve always liked my name and its nicknames, Margo being the most common I use.
This blog is the first time in my entire life that there was another Margo and it was hard to keep us straight, so I started using my full name for clarity!
Now my middle name, Louise - YUCK. I just deleted that one and kept my maiden name as my middle name when I got married (happy to give up my boring last name, too, for my husband’s more distinguished sounding one; I wish I wasn’t quite so shallow!).
Amy Elisabeth, it could be worse. It could be MY name: Kathy Sue. The good is that my parents did have the foresight to name me Katherine Sue. And now that I write it, it is rather pretty… just like Amy Elisabeth.
I had the oppossite problem. No one had my name, but if they did, they spelled it wrong. lol.
I was wondering if were going to admit what your birth name is. Personally, I think Amy is a fine name, but Ivy has a certain amount of intrigue to it since it is unusual.
I have a slightly different problem with my name. For some reason people always want to call me Jennifer. I guess because it is the more popular “J” name.
You’ll always be Ivy to me!
When I was little I wished for a good 80s name like Stephanie or Christina.
Seriously, I hate being named the same thing as everyone else. Currently in my mom’s group, we have a total of EIGHT Amys running around. It is a joke that if you don’t know someone’s name in our group, just try Amy.
PS- Hilarious that your mom asked a question. LOVE IT!
PSS- If you tell me your name is Amy, I will have to put together a little present for you as a welcome gift to the Amy Club
My first name. Incredibly common.
My middle name, not so uncommon that it sounds wierd or unexpected, but uncommon enough that I’ve known a grand total of ONE other person who shared it (and known OF only 2 or 3).
I could never make the switch growing up because by the time I had decided I wanted to, everybody already knew me by my first, but when I went off to college, I made sure to introduce myself by my middle name, and have gone by it ever since.
Amy is kinda cool as Amelia can take you to Lia, Milla, Emily, Emele, Mel, Mimi, Lili. Just rock out a nickname and it’s no thing.
And in the 80’s.. Everyone wanted to be a Heather (and with Christian Slater!). So that’s a cool name also.
But please tell me what’s so cool about “Jaime”. Such a kids/boys name. I’ve been called “Himay”, “James Earl Jones”, “Jimmy”.. my MIL can’t say my name so it sounds like “Jimney” . Also, most of my mail comes “Mr. Jaime ___” . Fun, fun, fun.
I like Amy and Ivy.
I’m Melinda Grace. When I had my second, we named her Grace Elaine, which is my middle name and his middle name (Lane). Now, every where I turn, there is a Grace. But I had the name picked out in 1996, so…
Hugs,
Melinda
(Who was almost Mildred)
My Daughters are Lily Elizabeth (Middle name for my mum) and Amy Rose (Who was supposed to be Samantha Dawn, but it got changed because she didn’t look like a Sam.) and when Lily was born, I didn’t know of a single one… now I know of atleast 5 her age. Dangit.
.. I’m an early 80’s Amanda. There was 13 other girls of the same name on my FLOOR in dorms. There were 5 more on the 2nd floor, and 3 on the top floor O.o
Hey. My name is Jennifer, but for some reason it never bothered me. I like Jen and Jenny as well. Jenny was childhood, Jen early adulthood, but now I like when people call me Jenny because it seems affectionate…
I’ve pretty much always contended with other Jens. I started a Jen club in high school (I was the Prez, natch).
Embrace your namehood, sisters! We are united in our limited selection of monikers!