CNF Online Journal 1: “My Name.”
My name doesn’t come with an intriguing meaning nor does it come with an engaging story of how it was chosen. I wasn’t named after a great-grandmother or a noble person. It was simply a name my mom saw on the internet as she searched for baby names that had a nice enough meaning.
Kuya was Ceejay as short for Carl Joshua. So for consistency, Mom looked for a name that has a nice meaning behind it and a second name that starts with “J” to go with it. Eventually, Google gave her “Alyssa” which apparently means “rational” in Greek, and “Joyce” which quite plainly means cheerful. From then on, they introduced me as Aejay to the world.
In school, I quickly realized how common these names were. There were at least two other people I knew who went by Aj and two others were also Alyssa’s. In high school, I met even more people with the same name.
Some teachers would call me Alyssa, and very few still went with Aejay. Most of my peers called me by my last name to avoid confusion among the different Alyssas and Ajs of the batch. Eventually, almost everyone I knew called me Mayo. Even then, I wasn’t safe from being called a name shared by several people. Sure, no one else in school was called Mayo but it was indeed my family name. Whenever my parents were walking with me in school, a classmate would occasionally try to call me “Mayo!” and all three of us would turn our heads.
Being so used to that, I sometimes feel like my actual names don’t feel like mine at all. Very few people call me Aejay or Alyssa and no one even calls me Joyce. As years went by, it felt awkward for me to introduce myself to strangers because I would often panic and think about which name to tell them. Introductions always felt like an identity crisis because I no longer felt like Aejay or Alyssa or Joyce. They sounded foreign and distant to me.
I used to think that I at least exuded what my name meant — rational and cheerful. I tried hard to live up to it, made myself believe I’m more mature for my age so I had to act a certain way. However, growing up, I’ve come to realize I was far from being a rational kid or a cheerful teenager. I am very emotional, crying at the simplest things, and an overthinker. I was cheerful as a child, yes, but not anymore. The cruel world easily gets to me and I wished it didn’t but that’s how I am.
The different nicknames I’ve gone by through the years signify a different “me” as I figured out who I am, almost as if I had a nickname for each identity crisis I’ve encountered.
Now that I’m nearing college, I’ve been asking my friends to give me a new nickname, something unique and something that would feel like my own. With a new nickname, maybe I’d also get to know myself more, know how to introduce myself to a stranger quicker or feel more confident with who I am.
I used to always worry because I didn’t know myself. When asked to, introduce, I usually don’t know where to start or what to say. I have spent sleepless nights just worrying about those things, crying overnight and waking up with puffy eyes. Now, I realize how normal it is. I’m still growing up, still building who I am. I’m still figuring it all out and that’s more than enough.
