Scarlett O'Hara's Unknowable Secret

What’s in a name?  Well, let tell you a story. . .

Once upon a time lived a young girl who was the belle of three counties in Georgia.  She loved to wear fancy dresses and always had a bevy of young men buzzing about her.  But that Southern paradise was rent asunder with the coming of the Civil War and the young heroine found herself forced to adapt to this new life or perish.  This heroine was none other than. . . Pansy O’Hara.

What?  Something wrong?  Well, that was the exact same reaction Margaret Mitchell got from the editor who read her story.  Somehow that name Pansy didn’t jibe.

And thus Scarlett was born.  And Gone With the Wind went on to receive the Pulitzer Prize a year after publication.

So what is in a name?  Well, maybe nothing special, but I believe Pansy would beg to differ. . .