Name Names

As I was rushing toward the bus stop this morning—to start my daily commute to the various cafes where I work—I bumped three times into the name Lupita. The first was right outside my building, when a man held the door for a woman; the second was at the fruit shop, where I overheard a worker on the phone addressing a certain Lupita; and finally, standing on the bus, I saw the name flash on someone’s phone screen. Perhaps was just a random association, tricked by my brain because of the bond I have with a name that I´ve only heard once before. It belonged to a very special person who passed away abruptly a year ago. Thinking of her made me smile, because her smile was so infectious. Throughout the rest of the ride, I found myself thinking about how quintessentially Mexican that name sounds. It made me think if there would be other names that so accurately transcribe the image of a nation in our minds… And if so, why?

I think, of course, of Spain—I am Spanish—and the name Carmen. When people hear it, the initial connection I assume is always of a Spanish woman. Perhaps English speakers think of Carmen Miranda, while children of the ‘80s automatically picture the riveting gaze of Carmen Sandiego, that stricking look when sneaking from beneath her hat. For me, ‘Carmen’ has a sensory quality to it, inextricably linked to the color red. This is not because of Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera—which I have seen and loved many times—where Carmen is usually portrayed in red, mirroring the bleeding bull. Nor because Carmen Sandiego, was consider the ‘Lady in Red’ and who was my favorite cartoon character. It is indeed because my grandmother, Carmen, always wore a distinctive “sangre” red lipstick, a color which in my mind, made me always think of her.

What most people don’t know is that names often carry hidden meanings—beyond grandma´s lipstick — which some are simple but others remarkably complex. In the case of Carmen, it represents a romantic accident where the Hebrew word….

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