While Pudge and Alaska are together, Pudge likes to find out more about her. He asks her questions and makes comments to find out Alaska's life before the boarding school in Culver Creek, including how her name came to be. Pudge asks Alaska how she got her name and what's the meaning behind it. "Not to ask the obvious question, but why Alaska?" he asked. At first you would think it would just be a one sentence answer on how she got her name. But it was much more. She told him about how her parents couldn't decide so she went by "Mary" at one point, and then on her seventh birthday her parents let her pick. She picked Alaska. Why? I asked myself and so did Pudge. It means "that which the sea breaks against" and Alaska said she liked that. But what really made me think while I was reading was when she said, "But at the time, I just saw Alaska up there. And it was big, just like I wanted to be.
This part of the story I thought has a lot of meaning and weight to make me think about. She picked her name based on a state that she liked the meaning to it. But also because it was big, and that's what she wanted to be. She wanted to grow up. That made me think about how when we are kids, we dream about becoming this great person when we get older and we want to be able to do things that older kids do. But once you're growing up, it's a trap. You want to be a little kid again. But you can't take back the time that she once had as a little kid.
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