I Have Finally Found It, After a Lifetime of Searching

This is the name. The best, strangest, most difficult to wrap my head around name that I have ever heard. It belongs to a young girl who likes to read fashion and gossip magazines in the library while sucking her fingers, like a small child would suck her thumb. She is very sweet, but her eyes always seem a little glazed over when I tell her that lunch is over, it's time to go to class. My guess is that she spends a lot of time in front of a TV. Her name makes me think of ducks. It is a wonderful name to say aloud, and I find myself adding an extra U as the next to last letter to make the name sound just a bit more rolling, a little more like it came from some long-ago language spoken by sun-baked ancestors. The name is...

Tommaniquecka

Yes, Tommaniqueck(u)a, the goddess of harvest and light.
Or, Tommaniqueck(u)a, a warrior princess riding a great, tamed beast.
Tommaniqueck(u)a, who betrayed her people and brought down a curse upon them.
Tommaniqueck(u)a, who lives with her grandmother near a solitary pond and can communicate with the geese and swans who live among them.
Tommaniquek(u)a, a fierce and vengeful sorceress, dressed in animal skins and a crown of sharp teeth.

I could go on and on like this for hours. Say her name again and again and I think you'll know what I mean. The added U is necessary for me, since the harsh ending sound of the true spelling (Tom-an-eek-eck-a) does not inspire such glorious possibilities. It does however, better fit the small, fragile, dazed girl in the corner, sucking her fingers and reading about glitz and glamor.

The years go by and the names get more elaborate, more challenging for the unsuspecting teacher reading the roll for the first time, more filled with apostrophes (Arie'L, for example), and more exotic. Eight years ago, Tanjalay Lovelady crossed my classroom threshold and I thought that no name would ever be better than hers. It was so satisfying to say. One couldn't help but grin at the thought of the parent who lovingly chose it, declared it, and had it written in stone. But honestly, Tommaniquecka brings things to an entirely new level. I cannot wait for the name that I will someday find that will make Tommaniquecka sound like Mary or Beth. Just imagine the possibilities. It makes me giddy.

What's in a Name?

Today another one came across my desk. This name is less outrageously flamboyant than many of the others, to be sure, but it does point out a subtle issue in naming conventions that will result one of two things. 1 - We will, as a society, begin to accept bizarre, invented names and their spellings as commonplace, therefore never again being able to count on the ability to spell or make an educated guess at a person's origin, religion, heritage, etc. Or 2 - this child, and other children like her, will be forced to change her name if she wants to escape not only ridicule (in her younger days) but the assumption that she is uneducated (in her middle years). If #1 happens, #2 will not. Probably. My guess is that #2 will happen first, and has already happened to countless kids and professionals.

This child's name is Beronica. Like Veronica, but not. Because of the fact that many Spanish speakers pronounce v's as b's, her parents clearly did not hear or know the standard spelling of this name. Not that Beronica is such a bad name really, but it does probably indicate a lack of knowledge on her parents part, which she may or may not ever realize. I could be wrong. This could be intentional. Yet there are other names that lead me to believe that these are mistakes, not acts of creativity. Yonatan, is my next best example. Jonathan, but not. It is pronounced just like it is spelled, which is how someone with a heavy accent might pronounce Jonathan, after all. Y for J, hard T for TH. It makes perfect sense. I have nothing against the namers of these children, but I do wonder if Beronica could be a bank president if she keeps that name, that spelling. Maybe. Maybe by the time she's old enough, there will be enough Bictorias and Baleries that Beronica won't stand out. I do hope so.