This is a little more on topic than it sounds. I was named in part after Dora in the book, David Copperfield. It is a very strange story. Other aspects of the story are even odder and make so little sense I don't know if they happened. My father was from prosperous farmers and community leaders become old middle class stock from southeastern Chester County. His grandfather moved the family to Philadelphia so that his sons could further their careers as a doctor, a lawyer and a bank executive. My father never quite made it out of the 19th century, his family life had been somewhat troubled, he was withdrawn and intellectual, and he always looked up to snobby people who reminded him of people he grew up among. His favorite novels were teh 19th century classic Barchester or Barchestershire (I think I'm spelling it right) Chronicles about English clergy and their families. I am thinking that people of similar background to my father would be able to guess what of a positive nature might have been on his mind if anyone could. I know that there are several people on this list who are very similar to those my father grew up among and looked up to - and perhaps they would love to speculate on what they might see as positive reasons why I was named for Dora Copperfield. In Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, Dora was David Copperfield's first wife, and a mistake. She was the daughter of a banker that David was working for or knew through work, and he had forbidden the marriage before he died. Dora was pretty, but spoiled and pouty, she had little stuffing, and she was a poor housekeeper. She didn't do much housework, because she preferred to spend her time petting her lap dog. I vaguely recall something about her sitting primly in a room with the Murstones in the days when David was courting her. Why either of them was keeping company with the Murdstones could be an issue my parents might have identified with, since both had parents who at times could be quite Murdstonely, and neither had much insight about that. Eventually Dora died, after apologizing on her deathbed for being useless. David loved her and couldn't abide to do his husbandly duty to correct her, so he let her go on being pouty and useless. He pretty much enj! oyed his life with her until she died, at which point, as I vaguely remember it, he admitted that she had been useless. According to the way Dickens wrote it. After her death he was reunited with his true love, a friend from his youth who had been waiting ever so patiently in the wings, they had children and David began a writing career. Dora wasn't even the Victorian stuffed doll my mother actually hoped I would be; she looks to me like one of the many caricatures Dickens intended the reader to dislike and learn not to emulate. I will entertain any guesses of what about Dora, or about David's relationship with her, that would have led my father to name me after her? All I can think of of a positive nature is that my father may have had some of the same issues that David did. What did people on this list even think of "David Copperfield" when they read it? Apparently my parents both liked the book. I guess. At times it is hard to get my mother to admit to such peripherally emotional matters as liking or not liking something. I have always thought that the entire book was a nightmare. Has anyone found any of the characters in the book to be people one would identify with, or was the book nothing but a combination of 19th century soap opera (that serial novels thing), and social commentary? Yours, Dora Smith --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard.