All these names

What does it feel to live in a world crowded of Pablos, Marías, Juanes, Josés, Marcelas and Alejandras when your name is Krikor, Armenuhi, Levon, or Azaduhi? What does it feel to be an Armenian living in the Diaspora, and try to explain to local people that your given name is actually your given name and not your last name? What does it feel to be obligated to spell you name and last name each single time at school, at the dentist´s or even in a social event in order to people understand how to call you or pronounce your name? This is the story of my family, and even when my parents were very smart and gave me an international name to avoid me their own suffering (my name is Carolina by the way), I am very used to wait for 3 or 4 seconds until a person can read my last name, not properly, but at last pronounce something similar to chinchan -instead of Tchintian.

This is the story of my family. Armenians who were born in different countries all around the world because of different circumstances, they end living in Argentina, a beautiful country that received them in the best way they never could imagine. But still, the story of all these names never was easy. Let me tell you some of these stories and let´s start with my grandmothers. One of them was born in Izmir, Turkey. She had a beautiful Armenian name; Hripsimé. To make the Argentineans life easier, she decided to tell people that her name was Cristina. She was so convinced that this was the real translation of her name, that, following the tradition of millions of families in the world, not only Armenians, my elder sister´s name is actually Cristina. My other grandmother name was Srpuhí, which in Armenian means Saint; a little strong translation for Argentinean people. So she decided to tell people that her actual name was something similar: Angelita, which means little, angle in Spanish. My father, he is a real case. He was born in Greece, lived in Armenia for many years, and he immigrated to Argentina 40 years ago.

His name is Garabet, a very nice and common name for Armenian people. He is very used to clarify all the time that this is his given name and not his last name! In order to be able to live, work and socialize in Argentina, he had to figure out how to present himself in society. He chose Carlos (Charly), because, according to him, this is the translation and is what sounds similar to Garabet. That is ok. But he is so convinced about this fake translation, that he wants one of his grandson´s name to be Carlos.

As I told you before, my parents give me an international name, as well as to two of my sisters. But they didn´t think so much when my youngest sister, the forth of us, was born. Her name is Nariné, which was the name of the ancient capital of Armenia. It sounds beautiful, isn´t it? When she was born, Argentinean law did not allow foreign names, so, advised by a public officer -who in general have not a very good fame in Argentina-, they decided to inscribe her as Mariné, which was allowed, but instead call her Nariné. For us, she is Nariné, but her ID said Mariné. Can you imagine the identity problems she has every day? We receive phone calls asking for Mariné, and of course, we answer: wrong number!

Everything is about names, because it gives people identity

As a daughter of immigrants, I can tell you millions of these stories, which makes our life really fun. I am convinced that there is nothing stronger and paradigmatic for human being´s identity than their given name. I have a real passion for names, and I never could explain why. Maybe is for all this stories I heard all my life. José Saramago wrote many years ago a book named “Todos los nombres” or “All this names”. The main character of this book is a simple man named José, just like him. He explained why he chose this name: "...in this book, there is only one person that has name, and his name is José, not because he is my alter ego, but because I was looking for an insignificant name and the most insignificant name I found was mine.” Names maybe are insignificant, but they gave me a lot of interesting stories in Argentina, and for sure, it will continue being like this wherever I choose to live.