What's in a name?

I think we’ll be changing our names on the blog for privacy reasons, and this week I’ve been thinking a lot about my name. I was named after my mom’s aunt Juanita Brooks, an LDS historian/author. For some reason, they decided “La” in front of the name made it sound even better, and that’s what I got. I always joke that by the time they got to me (9th out of 10), they were running out of names and had to make up one, and I used to say “I’m not just any Juana, I’m THE Juana (“la” means “the” in Spanish).” Here's a picture of me when I was about 4, with my best friend and my older brother (not sure what he's doing with this pose). I have my name shirt on that my parents had made for me in Las Vegas. I remember always being sad that I never got personalized things like those little licence plates, so they got a shirt made for me.

My brothers all called me Juana or Juani, and most of my good friends picked up one of those. John calls me Juani at least half the time. A lot of people think my name starts with Lu, more like Luanne or something, which doesn’t bother me at all. I answer to anything remotely sounding like my name. My basketball coach was entirely unable to pronounce my name and just started calling me Lou after the first day. So then the whole team called me Lou, Louie, or LuLu. Some of my friends from high school still call me that. One day, my older brother’s friends sat at lunch and made a huge long list of nicknames for me, including:
Lajuanasaurus Rex,
Lackawana (tribe of Native Americans in NJ),
Susquehana,
Mahana (from Johnny Lingo, as in “Mahana you ugly. . .come down from that tree”),
Hermana Lajuana, and a bunch of others I don’t remember or have intentionally shut out of my memory. This was the "awkward time" in my life, and I was mortified at so much attention from Seniors. Here's a picture of me between two friends when I was 15. Like the glasses?

When I was called to go to Spain, I was excited to go to the land of my ancestors (my dad’s family was from there), and was fiercely proud of my name. I started to realize in the MTC, however, that my name was not just unique, it was downright weird. Imagine your name being Thejulie or Themary. People would think you were a little strange, and your parents too. I learned on my mission that people sometimes use an article in front of someone’s name, but it’s used in kind of a derogatory way, or at least disrespectful. I can’t think of something similar in English. When I first got to Spain, when people would ask my first name, I would say Lajuana and they thought I was crazy. I would have to explain in my limited Spanish why they named me that, and still at the end, they would say “It’s just not right” and they would lecture me on why my name was so wrong. In my next area, I decided to fix the problem. When people would ask my first name, I said Juana. “You mean Joanna.” “No, it’s Juana.” “How could you be named Juana, I don’t believe it.” Then I would have to prove it to them, I had to show them my real name engraved on my scriptures was Lajuana, and then have the whole conversation again about it being wrong to name your child Lajuana. Finally, in my next area, when anyone asked my first name, I would say Joanna, and they would say “Oh, that’s like the name Juana in Spanish.” “Exactly.”

It's also interesting to note that John and I have the same name, almost. Juan y Juani. That might be the new title of our blog.