Helaine Becker: Hello everybody, it's Helaine Becker. The origin of my name is slightly obscure. My mother picked it because she wanted a name beginning with "H". In the Jewish tradition, a child is named after a relative who has died and my grandfather had died not too long before. His name was Harry. So, the choices for me when I was born were either Harriet, Heidi, or Helaine. I don't know where my mother got Helaine from. It's not a proper French name and it's not a proper English name either.

In French it would be Helene, in English Helene is often how you hear people say it or the old fashioned Elaine, but I'm Helaine. When I was a kid, I was teased a lot for that. I was "Insane Helaine", "Helaine's a pain", things like that. So, I didn't like it too much and I really wish that she had named me Heidi instead because Heidi was one of my favorite characters in a book. Heidi had goats named Dudley and Bearly and to this day, I still would like to be called Heidi and have my own pet goats.

Becker is the last name I was born with,. Even though I am married, I did not change my last name when I got married. I'm very happy to still have the name that I got the very first day I appeared on this earth. Helaine Mann Becker.