When a girl is born, her parents choose a name that seems prettiest to them. Of course, tastes are like colors. Nobody can prevent herself from being baptized with a name like Filomena, Artura, Fructuousa, or some other hair-raising moniker. I do not agree with the opinion that class and style are matters of social strata and of economic perceptions. Very much to the contrary, I believe that poor taste comes from being traditionalist, from the determination to place upon a child the name of the grandmother, who in her turn, is also named for another ancestor with poor taste.

In Laura Esquivel’s well-known novel “Like Water for Chocolate,” the protagonist tries to free herself from an accursed custom passed down from mothers to daughters in her family. I will not reveal any more about the story, because it is a delicacy I recommend to whomever has not read it. However, it provides me with an example, which indicates that, sometimes, proper names are the load burdened by an ancient load, obliging one to call a girl Filomena or Artura or Vicenta or Fructuosa. I hope that if any Filomena, Artura, Vicenta, or Fructuosa is reading my article, she is not offended by what I am saying, or at least, if she feels offended, she can excuse my overwhelming sincerity. In any case, to be named with whatever cacophonous name, even though it may be a misfortune, does not deny the feeling of love that her progenitors felt when they thought of a suitable name for their daughter. If she is named for her grandmother, that is because she reminds them of all the good things about the grandmother. No one places upon a child the name of a grandmother who is hated.

A name can signify the intention to perpetuate the past glory of a family member or of a personality who stood out for his/her past achievement. It is no mistake that there are people named Napoleon and Jesus. My mother is a teacher of small children at a grade school. One time, she told me that one of her pupils was named Kevincostner Martinez. They had placed upon the poor, unfortunate child the first and last name of a famous actor as if the whole thing were a name. Clearly, as the years pass, he must suffer the mockery of his classmates. I also know of an instance of a child whose father was so pedantic and so ignorant that he wanted to name his child after the name of a character from Homer’s Odyssey, Telemachus, the son of Ulysses. However, he should not have committed this sin of indiscretion. When one is ignorant of something, it is advisable to avoid documenting your ignorance or to be ignorant of it forever, without boasting of it to the entire world. Therefore, we will not call our son Telemachus, without the Spanish accent, because it would make sound as if it were the name of a new telecommunications technology.

The surname
If we owe our name to our parents’ expression of love, the matter of our surnames is different, above all in the case of women. When a woman is born, she inherits the last name of her father (unless she does not have a declared father, in which case she inherits the last name of her grandfather). After they marry they inherit the last name of their husbands. When they divorce, they do not know which surname to take. Later, they remarry and take the surname of their new husband, unless their economic affairs require them to have the surname of their previous husband. When a woman does not marry, but rather lives together with a man, she may choose to adopt the last name of this man or not, I imagine because the law does not obligate her to do so. And if this woman is a widow, she may conserve the surname of her husband even if she is living with another man. I think that the government must go crazy with so much changing of last names.

In conclusion, the surname of a woman in the United States changes depending on her marriage status. It is like a bull’s head that is branded upon a cow’s buttocks so that it remains clear that it belongs to a specific herd. Seen like this, matrimony seems like part of the ownership agreement between two men, the father and the husband. The woman cannot decide to be the owner of herself.

In Spain, we have another formula. The woman inherits the surname of her father forever and uses it forever, even when she gets married. However, once the husband goes to work in a business or their children attend private schools, they are compelled to call the woman “Mrs. Martinez” (her husband’s surname), “Mrs. Lopez” . . . but never “Her own surname.”

It seems like foolishness, but in reality, it is the reflection of an old inheritance from another time when a woman had the same value as a camel or a house. She was a belonging, above all a commodity for buying and selling; a currency of exchange that was used to carry out transactions. Haven’t we unleashed ourselves from this past? Evidently we have not, as long as we continue to be the missus of someone, even though it grieves us to admit it.

Translated by Mitchell Cowen Verter

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