To be honest, I used to hate my name.
My early childhood memories that have something to do with my name, as far as I recall, weren't good at all. It's funny looking back at it now and remembering how I had to fill the whole row of the first line in our red and blue lines paper.
I'm not sure if it's the same for other countries, but in the Philippines, we have different kinds of papers to use - depending on your level of education. If you're in kindergarten; we use the red and blue line papers. By elementary, we use the 1-4 writing pads (blue lines this time). In high school, we use the intermediate pads which we can still use even in college.
Now, for someone like me with a ruler-sized name, it was challenging, more so when I was in kindergarten because I had to make sure to fill the lines with my name, starting from the top blue line, crossing the red line, and then the blue line beneath that.
To give you an exact look at how that looks like, this is how it legit looks like:
Imagine still writing your 2nd given name and everyone else is already answering question number 3 of our tests.
I went home one time and asked my mom, "Why'd you have to give me a long name?"
After she explained it, I admit, I was starting to see my name in a better light. Not in a laborious way, but I felt lucky to have been given a name that was very much thought of and is full of love. I felt proud that my name has a story by itself.
Hear me out because this might be a bit confusing:
I learned that my first name "Fritz" was a combination of my mother's name which is "Felly" and my dad's name which is "Richard". Put it together and you have "Frich" for which my mom didn't fancy at all so she altered it into Fritz. Actually, it was "Fritzel" at first but when my sister was born, she got that name and mine was "Fritz."
Let me know if this is a Pinoy parents thing where they name their children from the combination of their names, or has anyone else been named that way because I am curious and would love to know!
As for Earlin and Therese; my second and third name, "Earlin" came from my mother's mom's name (my grandma) which is "Earlinda" and "Therese" came from my father's mom's name (my grandma) which is "Theresa."
I have learned that it's also a very Pinoy thing where parents would sometimes name their children with the names of their parents. Because of this, I would love to know other people's stories about their names too!
And that's how my name came to be.
And, you know... I did feel special. I didn't know love could also take form in the name our parents give us.
Though, I did heave a sigh of exhaustion when my mom mentioned she was still about to add my birth month as my name and add in both my parent's father's (my grandpa's) name as well.
I pretty sure am relieved they didn't go through with it.
One of the good things about my name? It's how I don't have to worry about getting hit on my NBI clearance. Why? Because in the Phipinnes, when we're looking for work -one of the requirements is our NBI clearance. An NBI personnel combs through our criminal database to check for any criminal record–also known as “derogatory records”–associated with the applicant's name. A “hit” happens when the search returns a suspicious result.
I know I'll never get a hit because I'm the only one in the Philippines with this name. I wouldn't want it any other way.
Names have power. I love how mine is filled with so much thought, so much affection, and how it makes me proud to know that we are all very unique. And no one can take that away from us.
