44. What's in a Name
“In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting.”
For a bit of inspiration, before you get journaling, we wanted to share with you a favorite meditation on a name, excerpted from Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street:
“In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing...
“At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister’s name Magdalena—which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza. I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do.”
Prompt:
Write an ode to your name. Reflect on how it sounds and makes you feel. What it means, where it came from and if there’s a story behind how you got it. How has it informed who you’ve become?
Ayling Dominguez
Location: Bronx, NY
About: Oh, the number of pieces I've written about my name. The number of variances it's taken on in order to fit on other's tongues. In this piece, I gave myself room to pronounce it properly and tell my younger self (lovingly, but decidedly) to do so, as well.
Age: 22
Dear Younger Me,
Begin to look for yourself in the hesitance and five quiet seconds
before a teacher calls out your name
In their mention of butchering
the ceiling-high eyebrow raise
That is your space
Like a sunflower reaches for the sun, you do a conditioned tongue
I implore: do not get deferred
by the lure of normalcy;
to stand out, to cause strangers pause
That is your imparted prophecy
No matter how unconventional,
your mother was intentional
in stringing your letters together
planting the seed for confidence
prompting you to be a bellwether
born out of pressing, yearning necessity
A motley of syllables your dance partners
The curves of your signature a well-built armor
Do not bend down to help up
those who stumble
Let them try again
and again
Your nomenclature a lesson in being humble
in stopping to smell the marigolds woven throughout your claim to fame
No, you will not find yourself in gift-shop keychains
But in custom-made gold-plated earrings
in the way the wind whispers your name
when palm tree leaves move and you come to realize you have nothing to prove just by virtue of being the only [insert name and/or identity here] in the room
Begin to look for yourself in the union of history and opportunity
held within your name
You bring worlds together
A truth that should never bring you shame
With love,
The girl whose name rhymes with mean and whose nameplate necklace, even in the darkest of lights, glistens with a warm sheen
Ari Ziegler
Location: Orinda, CA
About: For this one, I combined this prompt with the one-syllable poem. It felt both challenging and empowering to limit myself to one syllable while also exploring the depth of a name. It got me thinking about how we go ahead and name people without even knowing them and how we have judgments of others in a similar vein, without even knowing them.
Age: 25
Cristina De La Rosa
Location: Monterey Park, CA
About: I have a beautiful sounding name in Spanish, but I do not follow proper Spanish grammar and I speak only English; many people assume that I speak Spanish. Explain in detail my two reasons for not speaking Spanish: American racism and a learning disability.
Age: 38
My name is Cristina De La Rosa and I do not speak Spanish. My name is beautiful when it is pronounced correctly, but I can't not say it myself. I can't roll my "r" like they do in Spanish, I have tried and tried, my tongue just can’t do it. I feel that only in America this would happen. And yes, I know I do not follow proper Spanish grammar when it comes to my last name. If I did my name would be written Cristina de la Rosa. My reasons for having a Spanish name and not able to hold a conversation in Spanish has to do with American history and my own personal history. I will break it down for you.
My first name, Cristina - my mom had a classmate, her name was Cristina and her nickname was Cris - she loves it. They funny thing is that my mom is the only person who calls me Cris; I have other family members who call me Tina. As a result, I tend to respond to any nickname given to Cristina: Christine, Christy, Cris or Tina. Most people will misspell my name, I tend not to get upset - they are spelling it in English (Christina). The only time I correct people if it is an official document. And the only time I get upset over it is when it is a family member or close friend misspells my name, like aunt who consistently spells my name as Christina.
My last name, De La Rosa - first some background my dad does spelled his last name the same as me. He learnt it from school, mostly likely a white teacher who did not know any better, he was in school in the 1960s. We do have written proof that my Grandfather Elias followed proper Spanish rules (de la Rosa), but then again, he was born and educated in Mexico. He immigrated to the US when he was 17 years old, within two years he married my grandma. My Grandma Jacinta was born in the US (in 1929) and both her parents were born in Mexico. They immigrated to the US as children. As a results, my Grandma spoke Spanish at home; her parents were migrated farm workers during the depression, they're sole goal in life was to survive, so even if they knew how to write in Spanish they never taught their children. My grandma learned some English in school, but she never went consistently and when she attended, she was made fun of so much she hated school. Most of the verbal English she learned was from the radio - as a young teenage she would work for the farmer’s wife doing household work. Therefore, my grandmother was not comfortable with neither English or Spanish and she would rely on any official person with proper spelling and my grandfather just did not care. So, my father learned how to spell his last name, De La Rosa.
In my house we only speak English and splatting of Spanish here and there. Both my parents their primary language is English. My dad grew up speaking Spanish in the home as a little kid, but when he went to school, he was too confused with English and Spanish - so his teacher told my Grandma that to help him she had to speak to him in English, so she did. From then on, my Grandma spoke to all nine of children in English. My grandfather did not care how she raised their children, but my grandfather did refuse to speak English in his own home, yes, my grandpa spoke both language (I personal have never heard him speak English). Over the years, my father primary language became English and he is not comfortable with speaking in Spanish. Well my mom grew up speaking proper English, both her parents are born Americans. Her dad (Andy) was born and raised in Texas and he was bilingual, like most of his family, that family branch switch between English and Spanish very comfortably. My maternal grandmother (Helen) was born in the US but her primary language is Spanish. During the 1940s she was in school and was made fun of for her accent - that she swore that would not happen to her children. My grandfather supported her decision, all nine of their children only spoke English. My mom did learned Spanish in school but she become more fluent in Spanish as an adult when she was a principal in South Los Angeles (with a large immigrate population from South America).
I was born in 1982, my parents lived in the Los Angeles area and I am their oldest child. With my father support, my mom wants to their children to be bilingual like her father's family in Texas, she learned it was better to start early. So, she spoke to me both in English and Spanish, as I began to speak, I was struggle with my words. Over time my mom expressed her concern with my Grandma Jacinta. My grandma told my mom the same thing the teacher told her years earlier. So, it was settled in my mom head - we only spoke English in our home. I attend the local public school and I struggle with phonics, spelling and reading skills, in addition I was part of the gifted program. My mom was worried because she felt I was working too hard to learn my language skills and she went to the school. In the 1980s, the school psychologist looked at my file and told my parents that I was too smart to have a learning disability and over time my language skills will improve. So, my mom worked with me and hired a private tutor to help me with phonics and spelling. I continue to have difficult mostly with phonics, spelling and grammar, eventually in middle school it was confirmed that I had learning disability. Over the years and with the help of an educational therapist I learned how my brain learns. Basically, I have issues with the oral language - to this day I have issues sounding out words, most of my spelling is about memorize and the gift of spell check. Therefore, it is extremely hard for me to learn a foreign language and I am ok with the fact that I do not speak Spanish. I did my required two year of Spanish to receive my HS diploma and one year of Spanish for my BA. And I did very well with the reading and writing components in class, but conversation aspect of Spanish always brought down my grades. As adult, I have concluded that I could have easier time learning a foreign language that did not share the same alphabet as English. Any other language that shares the similar alphabet as English it is just too confusing my brain. It is ok that don’t speak any other language, I have other talents and do not let that stop me from travelling the world.
Basically, I have a Spanish name, I did not follow proper Spanish rules, and I cannot pronounce my name in Spanish or speak in Spanish because of racism in 20th Century America and my brain has an unique way of decoding verbal language. It not a simple answer why I cannot speak Spanish, nor does that make me any less or more American. I have worked in retail for many years and I do not look down at a person for not speaking English or having an accent but for some people language skills are not easy and America does not have an official language according to the constitution. But I can promise to try find a way to communicate with others. I will no longer I cried again when a customer tells me that I am a disgrace to my family for not being able to speak in Spanish.
Emily-Rose Klema
Location: Raleigh, North Carolina
About: These prompts freed up space inside of me; gave me permission to make peace, unravel old patterns, outlive the past, and deserve the new. I have been changed by this 100-day process I committed to. Now I am ready for what lies ahead.
Age: 30
“I wanted to “baptize myself under a new name,” before I ever read The House on
Mango Street.
I was nineteen, and seating guests at a restaurant when suddenly, I heard the
name I had been secretly longing for all my life. A name that was more than Emily
which means “diligent one.” A name to distinguish myself apart from my family and all
previous sub-identities.
The name rose like a curtain from a stage when I said it: “I’m Emily Rose.”
In the past, my first name alone wouldn’t garner the blink of an eye. But this extra
syllable took over.
My guests leaned their shoulders over the table. I had an audience. They looked
at each other, they looked back at me, one of them had their hands folded beneath
their chin.
They told me it was a remarkable combination of names. They told me it was
beautiful, fitting. I felt seen just through a name. Not by any exquisite or rebellious act I
had done. It was effortless to articulate my first and middle names to them. Like pour-
ing water out of an urn. And as I turned smiling from the table, I heard them repeat my
name amongst themselves: Emily Rose.
Afterward, I went into the office and told my manager I needed a new name tag. “I
lost the other one.”
“Okay. E-M-I-L-Y right?” He spelled it out.
“No: Emily Rose.”
He didn't object. I wouldn't have stood for it.
And days later, I pinned my new name upon my shirt and it was my badge, it was
my medal. It was the name of a new me, a new chapter, a new life.
Three years later, in another restaurant, in another city, in another state, Sasha approached me.
She was the server with the gorgeous lips everyone of us talked about.
She was the server who drank homemade soup out of a mason jar. She was... a soul
from another world. She had a mystical quality to her.
When she addressed me, I was polishing wine glasses. Contemplating the fragility
of their natures. Sasha spoke to me as if we had been speaking on this level all of our
lives. She went deep. I was splashing around with her in an instant.
“You know, I’ve been thinking about your name. It’s a sentence, you know.”
I looked at her quizzically.
“Emily Rose.”
“Yes.”
“Emily Rose. Emily ROSE." She sounded out, rolling the "Rose" out like a carpet
form her tongue.
"She ROSE. Emily Rose. She rose up. She was cindering away in the archaic fire
and then she ROSE.”
I was catching on.
“Like a phoenix” she continued melodically, incanting something upon me like a
vision, like a pandora’s chest of memories let loose from within me. Birds fluttering
everywhere.
“Emily Rose was once “dead” but now, she is rising. You, my love, are Emily Rising.”
She had both of her hands on my shoulders at this point.
It was sealed upon me.
“You will continue to go by Emily Rose. And you will know that “I am Emily Rising”
because... I rose. That’s what you: Emily Rose, does. And you will rise again and again
and again.”
The things we most long for cannot be done for us by another. We must make the
first action. If we long for love, we must love ourselves first. To be discovered by some-
one, we must first discover ourselves. To be rescued from captivity, we must first decide
to escape and be open to what that looks like. Even when a “hero” stands at your
widening cell door, it is you who must step up and out.
When we do the things we most long for, we set a decree for who we are and
what we expect and most importantly, what we deserve. And then, the rest of the
world follows suit. And when others do at times, choose to disagree or berate or
bedraggle us, we in our shining armor of self-worth and healing, honestly disagree
and defocus from them - silly phantoms of intrusion that they are. And we look inside
and remember and align with all that we truly are.
I baptized myself with a new name first. I didn’t wait for someone else to do it. And
then, years later, within the body of another restaurant (my proverbial training ground
in so many ways), I was baptized yet again and this time, through the eyes of another.
And now, let me tell you, I have such peace with all of my names. I love hearing
people say, syllable after syllable, “Emily Rose.” It is a long name, and they show me
respect by honoring my request to go by that name. But even when I hear a strong
voice say “Emily” or a sibling call me “Em,” I feel an unspeakable joy that I have names
and that I am united with all of the power and unity they bring.
May each and every one of you come to love and discover the melody and purpose
of your own names too.
Hélène Crowley
Location: Canada
About: It’s about understanding and recognizing your identity and connection to your heritage. It’s also about respecting and acknowledging that identity and connection in others.
Age: 22
Katie Wesolek
Location: Nashville, TN
About: I loved this prompt about names because my first name is so generic yet has been the source of much consternation throughout my life.
Age: 35
Katherine? No. Kathleen? No. Kaitlyn, Katrina? No, dammit. Katy? Katey? Kathy? I give up.
It's a struggle - such a common name, five letters, two syllables. But some people just can't leave well enough alone. My legal name is Katie. No need to pick a random, more formal version to slap on official documents. And yet, that has happened before, more than once. I always wonder, how did they decide? "Heads, Katherine. Tails, Kathleen. Call it in the air."
The trouble with Katie, which really is a pleasant enough name, is that it's a universal nickname for so many others. Like, if you wanted to call your child Katie, that's what you should have named them. "Have you met our daughter, Mulva? Right now she goes by Katie, but someday she'll grow into Mulva." "This is little Murgatroyd, but we call him Katie."
Growing up, there were no less than six girls (out of, I dunno, maybe 60-80 kids) in my grade who answered to Katie. But I was the only one with nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide. They had options. Kat, Kate, or, how about maybe their actual names? It made for plenty of resentment and confusion. Do you remember how embarrassing it was to answer a question when the teacher didn't actually call on you? To return a hello to someone who wasn't actually speaking to you? The horror.
To further complicate matters, I married into a family that already had a Katherine. Fortunately, my sister-in-law has the decency to go by Kate, and that one syllable makes all the difference. It doesn't eliminate all confusion, but we have developed workarounds. For example, my husband changed my name in his phone contacts to "Katie Wife" after the third time he texted his sister to bring home a steak and I came home empty handed.
And I'm not faulting my mom for any of this ambiguity. She went into this naming thing as prepared as one could be in the 80s, when gender scans were scientifically possible but not common practice. She didn't know what she was having, and after 24 hours of unmedicated childbirth, I could have been a potato and she would have loved me out of sheer relief.
She and my dad had a few potential names for either gender. For some reason they were all K names. Kyle. Katelyn. But when push came to shove and I was evicted from the womb and pronounced a girl, they came to an impasse. They couldn't decide, and my dad, like the real standup guy he was, wouldn't let my mom call her parents to tell them the news until they agreed on a name. My poor mom - it's a testament to her enduring patience that my legal name isn't Whatever The Hell I Say It Is, Larry, Because You Aren't The One Who Just Experienced a Solid Day of Back Labor.
That would definitely require a nickname. Katie would work.
Nora Resnick
Location: Tyringham, MA
About: Many of my isolation journals have been about the deaths of my parents. This was a chance to commemorate them by recounting a story mom would tell often about my name. She would tell it in a very funny, animated way and while I can't perfectly capture her delivery, I do think it encapsulates her memory.
Age: 34
He was in his typical white robes, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a long white
beard. He was deep in meditation, my mother and father sitting expectantly across from him.
After a few minutes, his eyes popped open, warm and twinkly as always. “I can’t give the child a
name. She already has a name. Her name is Nora.”
My parents, slightly too old to be true hippies, were seekers. Academics and spiritual.
Both were raised Jewish, both rejected traditional the rigidity of religion. My dad, a devout
scientist, says he found god on a solo road trip across the country in the late 1970s. Sometime
after that, early ‘80s I’d guess, they joined a group called the Sufi Order of the West. Founded
on the principals of Sufisim, the mystical philosophy of Islam, but inclusive of the universality
and mysticism of all religions (and exclusive of the dogma and intolerance predominant in many
organized philosophies), the Sufi Order was full of meditations and retreats. The leader of it back
then was Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan. Pir was once asked to join the UN Religious Council
representing Islam and he declined because he did not represent a singular religion. This is a
man who was friends with the Dalai Lama.
If I don’t feel like explaining it, I’ll joke my parents were part of a cult. They weren’t, it
isn’t. True, some of the more lost souls who join it are searching for a leader to tell them how to
be, but the more grounded -- the people my parents connected with -- were regular people of
myriad backgrounds, searching for a deeper meaning in life and the universe. They never lost
their critical thinking, nor did they blindly follow suit. The Sufi Order isn’t my thing and it’s very
woo-woo, but I respect it.
Anyway, some of the members of the Sufi Order would be anointed with “Sufi Names.” A
rite of passage, I guess? Something my parents never took part in. In 1985 they did, however,
decide Pir could give a Sufi name to their third child and only daughter, me, still in-utero. The
80s were wild.
Anyway, he’s deep in this meditation and declares that the child’s name is not his to pick.
“She already has a name. Her name is Nora.” My mild-mannered, introverted mother looked at
him and blurted out: “Who the hell told you that?”
It was a name she had loved privately but had not shared with anybody, not even my
father yet. My parents had flirted with the name Jessamyn, but with a three year old son named
Jesse, the psychoanalysts in them feared an identity crisis. Too many children with the
nickname “Jesse” can cause trouble. Jessamyn became my middle name.
And Nora I became.
This is to say Nora has defined me since before my birth. It fits me, it feels like me. In my
life I’ve encountered people across cultures who hear my name and claim it as part of their
heritage. “Ah, Nora, you must be Irish.” “Your name is Nora? It’s Arabic and means light.” “We
have a dance here in southern Thailand the Manorah, but we call it Nora for short. It’s from the
birds.” I’m not Irish or Arab or Thai, but I welcome the connection.
I feel protective over my name. I’m adamant it is not spelled with an H -- Norah Jones
really made that tough for me in the early aughts. For a time in elementary school I was Nora R,
not to be confused with Nora C. But I prefer to be the only Nora around -- I don’t know how
Sarahs do it.
Until about age 10 I had a speech impediment. -- “s” was “eth” and “r” was “aw.” Which
made Nora Resnick -- No-wa Rethnick -- a joy to say (insert eyeroll in case that’s not obvious).
Nevertheless, it was, it is me.
Paola Caicedo
Location: Miami, Florida
About: My name has always been the one thing people compliment the most. I have just begun to realize that it’s not the only beautiful part of me.
Age: 27
Ode to you: Paola
It’s a strange feeling- reminiscing about the one thing that has defined me since birth. A five letter, three syllable word.
Pa-o-la.
Last summer, I returned to the tiny town perched up in the mountains of Colombia that bore witness to the beginning of it all. There was no evidence of my presence ever coming into contact with any of its structures, no remembrance of words exchanged between me and its locals. And yet, when I spoke my name it was as if the nineteen year gap between then and now had never occurred. These strangers that beheld my childhood became eager with stories to tell and shamed themselves for forgetting my existence. The mere mention of my name granted me hugs, one sided conversations, too many compliments and a home cooked meal I still daydream about to this day. I noticed that they all still called me “Paolita”, not allowing the image of the small girl with the bangs that they so dearly still (barely) cling to to evaporate.
As any person with a particularly “hard” name can attest, constantly correcting the pronunciation of your name is exhausting. This five letter, three syllable name of mine has been the premise to so many unwarranted conversations. I’ve had to spell it out, write it down, repeat it very slowly and reiterate again and again that it’s with an ‘O’.
“What’s your name?”
“Paola”
“Oh, Paula”
“No, it’s Paola. With an ‘o’”
“That’s what I said, Paula”
*rolls eyes*
However much confusion my name brought to others, it brought more to me when people started describing it as “beautiful”. I can’t quite remember the first instance, but I distinctly recall how it made me feel. I Paola, the human, felt beautiful because of Paola, the word. Ironically enough, the only words that I associated the name with were its meaning: small, humble- never beautiful. It was a testament to how I felt about myself. As incredulous as it sounds, my name was the catalyst to a long journey of self love. My name has been the most recycled part of me. I have written it down countless of times on all sorts of surfaces; people have uttered it incessantly, using it as a cause of concern, happiness, sorrow. I’ve used it to proclaim what is mine, scratched it out when things no longer served me. It has been transformed to variations of itself by those I love. It has been a greeting, a farewell. It has preceded me in every way, shape or form.
So alas, if strangers can consider the most overrated part of me beautiful, what’s to stop me from finding that part and every other part fucking gorgeous?
Paoyun Tang
Location: Toronto, ON, Canada
About: I am a Taiwanese-Canadian, born in North America. This prompt was important to me because it really helped me put into words, the tension and conflict I have always felt between my close connection to my heritage and cultural roots, and my desire to embrace a more modern outlook on life. Given that I work in medicine and child development, I feel that all children should be able to have a name that they can be proud of, and it is important that we all foster an environment where that can happen.
Age: 30
Patricia Svrckova
Location: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
About: My last name is full of consonants (a polar opposite to Suleika's). I strongly relate to the uncomfortable sense of being different and feeling like you don't quite belong because of who you are.
Age: 32
My last name is where all the consonants ran away to from Suleika’s.
Growing up in Slovakia, my last name was nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, it even had a meaning: it was the female surname version of the word “cricket” (the insect, not the sport). At school during roll call no-one batted an eyelid at my last name, no-one ever stopped mid-word when stumbling upon the syllable-forming “r”.
When I moved out of the country at age 17, I started feeling self-conscious about my surname name being different. It posed a difficulty, an inconvenience, to people whose first language was not Slovak. In college in the US, I still felt special; my difference was celebrated and treated with genuine curiosity and interest. I got used to having to spell my last name out and was happy to explain its meaning to anyone who expressed interest.
It was when I moved to the UK for graduate school that my last name started to feel like a burden. It hurt to hear the hesitation followed by mispronunciation of my name during graduation, despite me sending a recording of its pronunciation to the school administrators. In the “real world” at work, my identity was challenged daily, and I would regularly feel discounted, dismissed and judged for something about me that I never chose. On the other hand, I was endlessly grateful to my parents for the good fortune of giving me a first name that is internationally compatible.
I dreamed of marrying someone with a beautiful, simple, boring, pronounceable last name and just being done with feeling insecure and self-conscious about my own last name. Other times, when no romantic prospect was in sight, I fantasized about legally changing my name to “Smith”, to disappear into the averageness. With a “legitimate” last name, I imagined, there would be no questions asked about why I don’t speak with a British accent, and no more dealing with questioning looks from my colleagues and patients. I hated counting the split seconds during which I saw people deciding whether they can trust me because of their own stereotypes about central/eastern Europeans.
I like that my name has meaning, even if that meaning is only obvious to a tiny proportion of people in the world. I love that that meaning has to do with nature. And it still makes me smile when I see a patient from central Europe whose last name only I can understand to mean “carrot” or “onion”. It’s like we’re part of a secret nature club.
Yours truly,
Patricia Svrckova