Don’t try to guess my background. Things
like; you must be born on May, your parents must be Javanese, you must be
Moslem, which are really lame, don’t work with my name anyway. The way it works, not
being too obvious
is
just perfect, or it’s just me being a narcissistic.
Advantages? I don’t have to put much
effort when I was at school taking examinations with circled answer sheets. Try
to write it in cursive, it is neat, simple, and beautiful. First or last, both
are great to choose as a nickname. It makes a perfect username; linnamanda,
look how it has this two little fences on each side, with ‘a’ as the main gate.
It is international; Linn or Amanda, choose whatever you want.
Disadvantages?
Nina and Rina, I don’t know them but sometimes they’re with me. That’s why whenever I have
to place my name to order in a restaurant, I always quickly say one of my
friend’s simplest name, well it doesn’t hurt anyone. I love how my first name
comes with double ‘n’, instead Lina which somehow sounds chunky, therefore sometimes it bothers me
when someone writes it wrong. Another thing, it makes me sad that in Japanese, language that I
fond of, it’s Rina since there is no ‘L’, but still it’s also quite kawaii.
My lovely grandma gave it to me, although it has nothing to do with my family’s history,
it’s sheer hope. You may encounter my first name when
you read Al-Quran actually, it
derives from Arabic for
tenderness/delicate. Meanwhile, Amanda means loveable in English, and I
am grateful that my name shows that I am loved. L, El, Elin, Lin, Linna are
most of my nicknames, since most of my friends state that Amanda doesn’t suit me. But,
I bet if they know what Linna comes from, they will also refuse to call me that,
and that’s why my close friends just call me
El. Sadly, I
kind of agree with them, since I’m
not the type of lovey-dovey, feminine girl, and I’m more into a tough, rough,
reckless type of girl, not a woman yet. I look like a tomboy kind of girl, but
hey, this body contains a lot of hidden love, indeed. Everyone shows their
affection differently, but ironically I don’t show it tenderly. But, hope is a
hope and I’m learning to be a better daughter and grand daughter, a better
woman, and surely I want to spread more love, just like how my family raise me.
No
need another name, but I will consider an alias if someday I get bitten by an
animal and have to save the world. So, I will remain as Linna Amanda as I’m
proud of it, and I think a little bit of a surname addition at the end will
make it seems more lovable.
*This is a reflective essay for my Themes in Literature class, by responding to the excerpt taken from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros below.
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.
It
was my great-grandmother’s name and now it is mine. She was a horse-woman too,
born like me in the Chinese year of the horse—which is supposed to be bad luck
if you’re born female—but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese,
like the Mexicans, don’t like their women strong.
My
great-grandmother. I would’ve liked to have known her, a wild horse of a woman,
so wild she wouldn’t marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her
head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier.
That’s the way he did it.
And
the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life,
the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the
best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn’t be all the things
she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don’t want her
place by the window.
At
school they say many 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 my 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.
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