Names

10.01.09 By Kellyanne Mahoney

My students are named after mountains, South American soap opera stars, pop singers, prophets, soccer players and pageant winners. These names are both ancient and recently invented. Thus, the first assignment that my seventh-graders complete each year is to research the origins of their names. Although one of my former students discovered his lineage to the Ethiopian throne through this project, for the most part their names spin the tales of ordinary families striving to make better in this generation.

One student writes: “When my mom was a little girl in El Salvador, she loved to read. One day she found a newspaper and when she laid her eyes on the name ‘Kati,’ she couldn’t stop thinking about it. My mom was very poor growing up. She wasn’t able to get dolls to play with, so in her mind she always wanted to have a daughter and name her ‘Kati.’ Throughout many years she kept it all to herself because if she told her parents she’d get into a huge mess, they would assume she was so young and already thinking about marriage!” Another student, Luzelaine, writes that her name is “a point of light” for both her father and grandfather. Luzelaine was a beautiful woman her grandfather had met in Puerto Rico. Her father, a Super Man fan, “found this name agreeable because it sounds like Lois Lane.”

My immigrant students’ names sometimes seem telling of their parents’ desire to assimilate. A few of my Chinese students, for example: Diana was named after the princess; Cindy was named after her mother’s English teacher; Tony laments that his older brother had intended to name him after his favorite Mighty Morphin Power Ranger, Tommy, but that his parents botched it. But Jenny, another Chinese student, explains that there are so many Chinese Jenny’s because their names might actually be Jun-Yi at home like hers. Jun means “truth,” she writes. A Nigerian student, Helen, boasts that her full first and middle names in her native tongue total 40 letters.

One of my Albanian students’ names “means gold” in his native tongue; another student was “named for a man who saved the Albanians from their misery.” He repeated this line verbatim as he solemnly tacked up the accompanying illustration to his report, a printed photograph of a monolithic statue of his hero. He explained to me that Albanian immigrants like himself work hard in school because they do not have such opportunities to attend a school like ours back home.

One student muses on the randomness of names, that had she been born on a Tuesday, her name would have probably been Abena. On a Sunday it would likely have been Esi. But because she was born on a Tuesday it is Akua—pronounced Ah-kwee-ah. This is customary in Ghana, she writes, adding that she likes her name even though most Americans pronounce it “like they have a grape stuck in their throat.” Another student expresses his confusion about whether he was named after a popular Moroccan comedian or a prophet who was swallowed by a whale. He has heard conflicting accounts from the extended family members who were among those who had submitted their suggestions for his name. The winner, “Youness,” was drawn from a hat.

Their stories fill me with wonder about the series of events that led them to a seat in my classroom, and at the same time gratitude that they did.