My parents named me Dana after two relatives they never knew – my father’s grandmother Dena who perished in czarist Russia, and my mother’s uncle David who drowned as a teenager in the Rockaways. I like my name and never minded that it’s a bit uncommon, but it’s always disconcerting when people spell it wrong or mispronounce it. And because Dana can be a masculine name as well, I certainly wasn’t happy when as a high school senior I got mail from armed forces...