What's in a name?

I got on familysearch.org and looked up my great great grandmother's name, Antonina Soares, just to see what would happen. I then proceeded to spend the next two hours at least, looking up my family tree and tracing them back to when they came over from the Azore Islands. I was baffled to find that legitimate records of them were online and was strangely surprised at how fulfilled it made me feel just to find their names. I don't feel strong loyalty to my family like other people do. To many people, family is one of the most important things and they would do anything for them: often times this concept is lost on me. But I felt a deeper connection with the names of the generations that came before me and paved the way for me than many relatives that I've met face to face. I can't understand this.

What is in a name? My great great grandmother's name was Antonina. My name is embedded in the center of hers, and though I'm not named after her, it is derived from a form of her name. And in turn and I am derived from a literal form of her: my body and name all find their roots in her. Who was she? No one remembers what she was like. Was she caring and quick to smile or mean and closed off? Did she have an iron will and a sense of adventure or a bitter soul? She was married and had children in the Azore Islands before she ever moved to America. What must that have been like? She has a very light name: a very soft name. I imagine she was like that in her core, but from the plot line of her life I have to infer that she was a fortress of a woman. I hope she was lovable and I hope she was loved. Genetics are not joke: they contribute to so much that makes us who we are. What of me is her? For someone that knew her and then met me, what we they say reminded them of her through me?

Antonina begot Alzira (Elsie) who begot Alzira (Elsie) who begot Carol who begot Toni. And Joao (John) and Antone (Tony) and David (Dave) and Richard (Duke) all married into the line. And I wonder what's in my name. To be named after Antone and Richard: to be named after all men. I feel like there is something sacred to a name and wonder if I have daughters, if they will recite my name from three and four generations away, wearing the rings passed down from my mother to me, and if my name will roll off their tongues in a whisper and they will know nothing about me but that the words are sacred and cling to them as though they are the rings on their fingers. I would like to name my daughter Elsie. And maybe one of her daughters or granddaughters will begin carrying on the name Carol (because they will grow old and wise and have more daughters; isn't that strange?) And maybe those names will make them into who they are: My Vu, Antone (Tony) was a gardner when he was young, and my Ti Tony worked at a greenhouse most of his life: I wonder if this explains my inexplicable urge to grow things as well. I hadn't put that together until I had worked at a greenhouse for a season and my mother told me how odd it was that I had always wanted to garden since I was young. I wonder if my daughters will inherit anything from their names. I wonder if Antonina, Antone, Tony, and I all had this in common.

Maybe because of technology my name will never be whispered as simply sacred. Maybe my great great granddaughters will look through my pictures and videos on facebook. They'll read my old messages and emails. They'll read my study in honesty. They'll meet me as a young woman and grow up with me through all of my journals. Maybe they'll know me well. Maybe they won't like me. Maybe they'll love me. Maybe they won't really know me at all. But I hope that when I die and the years take away all remembrances of me, that my name will get to join that sacred echoing archives that I have discovered and which breaths meaning and soul into this independent body.

11/29/11