Challenge 30: Name

150. Names have a mysterious reality of their own. We may well feel an unexpected kinship with someone who shares our name, or may feel uneasy at the thought that our name is not as much our own as we imagined. Most of us do not choose our names; they come to us unbidden, sometimes with ungainly sounds and spellings, complicated family histories, allusions to people we never knew. Sometimes we have to make our peace with them, sometimes we bask in our names' associations. Ruminate on names and naming, your name, and your name's relationship to you. (University of Chicago)

We are all born. We are all given different names. Names give us a sense of identity. Names are what we all associate our personal selves with. Names can also originate from different languages. However, one name can mean many different things, like "Maya," which means different things in different languages. My grade school friends used to make fun of my name. They used to call me "Antenna" instead of "Athena." My father loved that Greek name and gave it to me as a second name, especially for when foreigners couldn't pronounce my Nepali name and said my name with a special stress on the "d," which is something that gets me red and glaring. Anyway, it was slightly odd to have a Greek name, knowing that I had not connections with it, whatsoever. Because of this, and because of the torture from my tiny friends, I decided to drop the name and went by "Bidushi" instead.

I have never met anybody with the same name as I. So, although I know there are people with the same name, I like to make myself feel unique for having a unique name. Now, my friends still tease me with my name, calling me all sorts of things that may not be appropriate to mention. However, even if I had a third name, I wouldn't drop this name. I have grown into this name, made it a part of myself, and strongly try to base my personality around it. "Bidushi," in Sanskrit, mean an intelligent woman. Every time I think of its meaning, I remember what my grandmother always says to me before I part for school: "Nanu, live up to the name your father has given you. Do your family proud." As I child, I didn't take this so seriously (just my grandmother being elderly), but as a teen, I try my best to live up to this name. An intelligent, independent woman who stands on her own two feet and doesn't need to rely on anybody. That's what I aim for.