Nathan, Meaning "Gift" in Hebrew

As many of you know, my name is Nathan Mirsky. Nathan is a very Jewish name, in fact, and the Hebrew verb "to give" transliterates to "natan." So take the noun version of that and boom, you have the noun "gift", which sounds like "minchah" in Hebrew (if you know how to read Hebrew, both words have nun, tav, and final nun, but with different vowels). At my old school, Tarbut V'Torah (TVT) in Irvine, we had to take a Hebrew class, and they were all Israeli. Whenever those teachers called my name, very rarely did they call me "Nathan"; instead they called me "Natan." Unlike Gogol in The Namesake, I'm not bothered by my name, despite it not being a super common name like Alex or Sarah. I like it due to its uniqueness and how it stands out (especially when put with my last name, Mirsky). I think Gogol thinks his name is a hindrace for its uniqueness, and ultimately the historical background of it. In the beginning of chapter 5 of The Namesake, he actually goes to the courthouse to change his name to "Nikhil," and by the end of the chapter he ultimately regrets changing it. I would never change my name; I'll always keep it at Nathan. And even though some people like to shorten it to Nate (which I hate), I don't beat myself up over it because I like it!

The reason I was named after the word "gift" is a full story with a spiritual significance, much like Gogol's. My brothers, Steven and Greg, were born in 1985 and 1987, and I was supposed to be just a couple years afterwards as "Michael." Unfortunately, my mom failed to get pregnant, and when she finally did, it happened to be a miscarriage. Skip a few years to September 1999, and my mom learns that she is pregnant again with me. Obviously it succeeded because I'm alive, and despite my mom being 41 when she gave birth to me, I came out perfectly (right on my due date [April 30] and at a great weight [7 lbs]). Now, the reason I was named Nathan was because my mom literally prayed to have a third child, just to make the family complete. With the whole decade that failed of getting pregnant, my conceiving was like a gift from God because I was conceived actually one month before my mom was going to take those pills that put women in immediate menopause. So I was my mother's gift, hence why I am named Nathan.