“Every flower blooms in its own time“
Some of the most frequently asked questions during the early stages of my social media presence were such revolving around my name: “Is your last name actually Fleur?“ “Why did you choose that surname?“ “Does it have any special meaning or did you just pick a random word matching your first name?“
Always elegantly circumnavigating an elaborate answer, I realized that I have never really told anyone the whole story about my alias surname being the French word for “flower“. Maybe I never did because I was embarrassed, maybe because it would make me look like one of those hopelessly romantic bookworms. Whatever the reason was, now that I have come to terms with me, in fact, being a hopelessly romantic bookworm, I wanted to finally give a satisfying answer to that question so here goes nothing.
As just stated, fleur is the French word for flower and – allow me to anticipate this one thing already – neither the language nor the meaning are coincidental.
When I first thought about my Instagram username back in 2018 (woah, I feel old now…), I knew that I wanted my real name to be the main part of it, because I actually really love the one my parents gave me (thanks Mom and Dad!). My last name, however, does not exactly sound that instagrammable and any foreign person would more than likely have trouble pronouncing it so I knew I had to change that. But what into?
I thought about this a lot because just adding some random word was not an option for me. I intended to make my username meaningful, expressive and personal.
The first words that came to my mind at that thought were spring, blossom and flower.
“Why these?“, you may ask.
Well, I’ve always had that keen obsession with the spring season, seeing the way nature metamorphosed from a seemingly dead, bleak landscape into a lively scenery resembling that of a fairytale, unfolding its inscrutable beauty by covering the world under a blanket of vibrant blossoms, promising the proximity of better days.
I wanted that, too. Not only did I hope for that step to be the first one into my own blooming season (turns out 15-year-old me was still pretty naive), but I was also longing to be a ray of light in somebody else’s winter, a dainty petal in their dull drabness. I wanted to be a source of comfort, giving others hope when they had none left, encouraging them to always keep their dreams in view, to never let their sight be clouded by doubts the way mine used to be.
But if I was to be a flower, which one would I be? I did not possess the ravishing beauty of a poppy or the timeless elegance of a rose, neither did I radiate brightness and happiness at an all-time-high as a sunflower would. I rather felt like a daisy: unimpressive and mousy, blooming in the graceful rose’s shadow. But I knew that I had something the fragile rose did not have: resilience. No matter how often I was stepped on, I would always get up one more time. And I was striving to grow. Maybe I would blossom into an amaryllis sometime soon, radiating strength and pride, maybe I would turn into one of my favorite flowers, the fire lily, overflowing with vitality and passion.
Or maybe I already had all of those traits within me.
Maybe after all I was not the daisy I had always reduced myself to.
Maybe my personality could not be depicted with a single flower, but instead consisted of a whole bouquet.
And that is why I decided to make my alias surname “flower“ – because I was intrigued by the thought of combining the cryptic language of flowers with the fascinating multifacetedness and intricacy of the human’s innermost characteristics.
That leaves one remaining question to be answered: Why Fleur? Why French?
This one is quite easy to answer. I think we can all agree on the fact that Jeannineflower would have sounded fairly ridiculous. Hence, I thought about what acoustic color would match my name and since it is a French name, I assumed it would only be logical for French to sound good in combination with French (genius, right?).
And boom. That’s it. That’s how Jeanninefleur was born.
I know those were a lot of words to explain a single expression, I guess I just felt like writing about flowers today…
Anyway, I sincerely hope all of your questions have been answered and nobody will ever be left in the dark about the meaning of my name again 🙂
Have a great day and don’t forget to be-leaf in yourself!
xx Jeannine
