A Likely Story: "Names/Nombres" by Julia Alvarez

Author Julia Alvarez has 12 names, but this reminder of her Dominican heritage was not always a source of pride. In this personal essay, Alvarez explores what her names mean to her.

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. trill
    pronounce with a flutter of the tongue
    I was too afraid we wouldn't be let in if I corrected the man's pronunciation, but I said our name to myself, opening my mouth wide for the organ blast of a, trilling my tongue for the drumroll of the r, All-vab-rrr-es!
  2. forbid
    command against
    Friends called me Jules or Hey Jude, and once a group of troublemaking friends my mother forbade me to hang out with called me Alcatraz.
  3. embarrassed
    feeling or caused to feel uneasy and self-conscious
    My mother was embarrassed among the Sallys and Janes and Georges and Johns to reveal the rich, noisy name of Mauricia, so when her turn came to brag, she gave her baby's name as Maureen.
  4. insist
    be emphatic or resolute and refuse to budge
    Her mother-in-law had recently died, she apologized, and her husband had insisted that the first daughter be named after his mother, Mauran.
  5. pity
    share the suffering of
    I pitied her. What an awful name to have to transport across borders!
  6. hesitate
    pause or hold back in uncertainty or unwillingness
    "Ana?" The man's voice hesitated. "Oh! You must mean Ah-nah!"
  7. ethnicity
    an affiliation resulting from racial or cultural ties
    Our first few years in the States, though, ethnicity was not yet "in."
  8. initial
    occurring at the beginning
    My initial desire to be known by my correct Dominican name faded.
  9. merge
    join or combine
    I just wanted to be Judy and merge with the Sallys and the Janes in my class.
  10. specify
    define clearly
    "From the Caribbean," I answered vaguely, for if I specified, no one was quite sure on what continent our island was located.
  11. exotic
    characteristic of another place or part of the world
    They were just being curious, I knew, but I burned with shame whenever they singled me out as a "foreigner," a rare, exotic friend.
  12. surname
    the name used to identify the members of a family
    I had made mouths drop one day by rattling off my full name, which, according to the Dominican custom, included my middle names, Mother's and Father's surnames for four generations back.
  13. chaotic
    completely unordered and unpredictable and confusing
    I pronounced it slowly, a name as chaotic with sounds as a Middle Eastern bazaar or market day in a South American village.
  14. apparent
    clearly revealed to the mind or the senses or judgment
    My Dominican heritage was never more apparent than when my extended family attended school occasions.
  15. florid
    elaborately or excessively ornamented
    But how could they listen when they were constantly speaking among themselves in florid-sounding phrases, rococo consonants, rich, rhyming vowel?
  16. introduce
    cause to come to know personally
    Introducing them to my friends was a further trial to me.
  17. complicated
    difficult to analyze or understand
    These relatives had such complicated names and there were so many of them, and their relationships to myself were so convoluted.
  18. convoluted
    highly complex or intricate
    These relatives had such complicated names and there were so many of them, and their relationships to myself were so convoluted.
  19. recall
    bring to mind
    After the commencement ceremony, my family waited outside in the parking lot while my friends and I signed yearbooks with nicknames which recalled our high school good times: "Beans" and "Pepperoni" and "Alcatraz."
  20. predict
    make a guess about what will happen in the future
    Someday, the family predicted, my name would be well-known throughout the United States.
Created on Wed Apr 15 10:48:56 EDT 2015 (updated Wed Aug 08 16:37:36 EDT 2018)

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