The Name Game

There’s a specific litany of questions people ask here when they find out you’re pregnant. First, they ask if it’s a girl or a boy. If you don’t know yet, they tell you they know it’s a boy/girl because ...

1. you’re really sick 
2. you’re not sick enough 
3. you’re really fat
4. you’re not fat enough
5. you’re due in October
6. the sky is blue
7. Real Madrid beat Barcelona this season

The next thing they ask is if you have a name picked out. If you say no, they will automatically suggest their own name. (After all, what’s more normal than naming your first child after some random nosy acquaintance?) If you say yes and tell them the name you’ve chosen, they will pretend to ponder it and then suggest you name your baby after them instead.

Names are a huge deal to people here. They tie you to your family and, often, your faith. Usually, you’re named after a relative or some saint your mom made a deal with while she was pregnant. If you’re having a girl and didn’t have to bargain, the common thing to do is name your child Maria del Something or Other. Carmen, for example, is really named Maria del Carmen. If you’re having a boy, you can still name him Maria, you’ll just confuse everyone for the rest of his life. 

Ruyman’s name didn’t come the old-fashioned way. His name comes from the Guanches, the indigenous people of the Canaries who were hunted and sold into slavery by the Spanish as practice for South America. The name means “prince of dreams” and is uncommon, even here on the island. Ruyman loves his name and wants to name our baby something Guanche.

I wouldn’t have a problem with that if it weren’t for two things. First, Guanche names are almost unilaterally ugly and second, they’re impossible for the average person to say. (There’s a reason I call Ruyman “honey” instead of his given name most of the time.) 

Here are some examples of Guanche names. Chaxiraxi (pronounced Chah-si-rah-si) and Guasemara (pronounced Whats-a-matta) are two common girl names. The boy names are worse: things like Euiniche (pronounced like the English word Eunuch) and Beniharo (that one actually sounds like it’s spelled). Is it any wonder I’m a little resistant to the idea?

To make things more difficult, Ruyman has a complete set of rules governing things we can and can’t name our child. Here’s the list.

No Bible names. This is a bummer, as I love Bible names.

No Spanish names. No arguments on that one.

No common names. All my beloved literary names like Jane and Elizabeth - gone. 

No names of people we know, including family. I’ve always wanted my first daughter to have the middle name of Joy after my mom. Not going to happen.

No names that sound like the names of people we know. I like the name Emilia. Ruyman knows a cheating, no-good so-and-so named Emilio. Also not going to happen.

No names that sound good in English but mean something bad in Spanish or vice versa. Chaya, a name that means light in Hebrew but shut up in Spanish, is off the list.

To further complicate matters, I have my own rules, though there’s not as many.

No names of evil former students. This caveat would be more problematic if we were having a boy, but verboten girl names include Maria, Mikayla, Alexandria, LaVonda, anything starting with “Shay,” and anything ending in “lee” (i.e. Shaylee, Shayla, Shaylyn, Kailee, Bailee, Hailee, Harley, Carley, Miley, Kylee, or similar).

Nothing easy to make fun of. Our kid will likely get teased, but I don’t want to paint a target on her back, either. (I was always grateful that “Jessica” is extremely hard to mock and doesn’t rhyme with anything. Though, growing up with a last name with like Fink, which has endless teasing potential, the safety of my first name became a moot point pretty quickly.)

Nothing unpronounceable. There’s nothing worse than always having your name mangled, especially by family members. Take Ruyman’s little sister, for example. Her name is Ashley. The “sh” sound is extremely difficult for Spanish speakers, so the majority of people here call her ASSley, or Ass for short. I’d rather that didn’t happen to my kid. 

With all these rules, the naming process has been time consuming and frustrating. When Ruyman and I finally agreed on two names, Ruyman refused to tell anyone because he was certain someone of our acquaintance would hear the name and steal it before our baby was born, sending us back to the drawing board. (This did actually happen with the boy name we’d picked out already.)

The secrecy has had some funny and unexpected results. Abuela, for example, had some expensive embroidered bibs made for the baby. The seamstress asked what name to put on the bib. Abuela is anything but subtle so now we have a beautiful new bib emblazoned with the name Laura. “I like that name,” said Abuela. Ruyman and I both hate it.

The name we’ve come up with is Serenity Acerina, though the more I get to know the little prizefighter in my uterus, the more I have doubts about the Serenity part. Words like serene and tranquil don’t seem to describe her very well. Acerina, by the way, is a Guanche name. I don’t mind it, so it looks like Ruyman will get his wish. 

Despite all the time and agonizing we’ve put into this decision, we’ll most likely change our minds when we meet our baby and name her something completely different, like we did when we got our dog. (Our black lab Laila was originally christened “Aida” after a Nubian princess in an Italian opera. It didn’t fit.)

There’s one thing I know for sure, though. Her name isn’t going to be Laura.