San Nicolas Names

As we start a new school year here in San Nicolas, rosters of long, confusing names stare back at us. It doesn't help the memorization process that everyone seems to be related.

According to Latin American naming conventions, everyone has two last names: one that comes from the paternal last name on their dad's side and another that comes from the paternal last name on their mom's side. Just by glancing over an attendance sheet, therefore, it is easy to figure out who might be related; in one of our classes, six students sitting next to each other all have “Rayo” as part of their last name. There are such things, we've discovered, as “San Nicolas names,” or last names that are more common here than in other parts of Nicaragua – names like “Rocha” and “Centeno.”

We were still a little confused about the Latin American last naming scheme, though, so we asked our neighbors to elaborate. Here is what we found out:

• You carry the name you are given at birth throughout your life. When a couple is married, they each retain the last names they were born with.
• If an unmarried couple has a child and the father disappears (or presumably, vice versa), the mother can give the child her two last names.

To add to the confusion of the classroom roster, everyone also has two first names, and they often go by different names with different people. One of the little girls who we cook with is called “Scharron Tamara.” She introduced herself as “Tamara” to us but is called “Scharron” by her family and other teachers.

Many of the first names we encounter around here are similar to English names; you just have to pronounce them in a Nicaraugan accent. For example, we have friends named Henry, Vanesa, Nahomi, Natali, Cindi, and Paul. People have also asked us for uniquely English names to name their kids. And then there are the names like Xochilth and Eliezer. Here is a common conversation for me, upon meeting someone for the first time:

Me: What is your name?

Xochilth: Xochilth.

Me: Oh, okay, nice to meet you, Sochi.

Xochilth: No, Xochilth.

Me: Ooooooh, Sochil.

Xochilth: Yeah, except it has an “x.”

Me: Exochil?

Xochilth, probably tired of the conversation: Yeah, kind of.

A lot of girls' names here seem to end in “in” or “ing.” We know several Maylings and Mayerlings, and then there is Danielsin and Darling. Names that begin with j's (pronounced like a y) are also popular: Josari, Jasmari, Jasmina. In one class we realized that we had some boy students seemingly named after US presidents: Jackson, Jefferson, and Franklin.

We've also discovered that in the more remote places around here, people don't always know how to spell their own names. Once we traveled deep into the campo via bumpy pickup truck to witness a baptism in a super-remote community. Padre Patricio asked the woman whose child was being baptized how to spell her daughter's name, and she responded, “You know, it's like the name of that woman in the soap opera.”

Needless to say given all this name confusion, there are people we talk to on a regular basis whose names we still haven't figured out. It would be a bit embarrassing to have to ask them what their names are now, after all this time, so we've taken to devising sneaky tricks to figure them out. A usually-successful standby is, “So how exactly do you spell your name?”