What's in a name

"Every person has a name
that God gave him
and which his father and mother gave him " Zelda

“My aunt Eva, historian at heart, claims that our first ancestor was King David. Yes, the red head, brave, sometimes questionable David. King David, the one who conquered Jerusalem, then just an unknown village and made it its capitol. Jerusalem then became the home to the tribe of Judea and till this day carries its’ symbol, the lion. Jerusalem is where I was born almost 3000 years later and was named after my grandmother, Ariela, Levia. Both names mean the same in Hebrew, a lioness of G-d.

This is part of what I wrote for the first meeting of our creative writing group and it was lying quietly in my drawer until about two weeks ago when I happened to reread it and suddenly it hit me like a ton of bricks. This makes no sense at all. By “this” I mean the story I told myself and others about the origin of my name. I remember, distantly, how my mother explained it to me. Well, it was almost fifty years ago so it is hard for me to remember her exact words. She told me how she and my father wanted to name me after my grandmother Livia, my mothers’ mother. They were however concerned with the old country ring it had and decided to change it to Levia, which was more up to date. And then as an afterthought made another change and named me Ariela with levia as my middle name. I carried this story with me all these years only for one flawed detail I did not pay attention to. Jews do not name their children after live relatives and my grandmother was alive when I was born. I clearly remember her sharing our tiny apartment in Jerusalem. So if she was alive, who was I named after?

Both my parents are dead now, so is my aunt, Lea, who was my moms’ only sister. There are no other live relatives except for my cousin Miki who lives in Israel. So, I picked up the phone and called her. “Miky” I said. And at that moment I realized, I don’t really know where her name came from either. I pushed the embarrassing thought aside and proceeded with my mission. I explained the name issue only to find out she knew even less then I did and had no idea I even had a middle name.

We departed with a decision that each one of us will try to find as much information as possible. She through her father, my uncle Zerubabel (his name is another mystery waiting to be resolved) and I, by talking to my two elderly aunts, my fathers’ sisters.

After the unfruitful phone conversation I dug out my birth certificate, just to be sure. It was written there, black on white. Ariela, Levia, born on March 1949 in Jerusalem. I also located, after racking my brain, a card box full of old papers and photos I took from my parent’s apartment in Jerusalem, after my fathers’ death. It was found unharmed, tucked at the back of a closet.

In spite of the clear displeasure of my husband, who kept telling me that a name is a name and I am making a big deal over nothing, I spent a whole morning sorting through falling apart yellowing documents.  They were all written in either German or Hungarian, none of which I read or understand. I was looking for any clue, running my eyes along lines and lines of incoherent sentences.

I found my mother birth certificate and my grandmothers’. I found my grandfathers’ wedding certificate and a picture of his grave in Budapest. I tried to make sense out of school papers, more marriage certificates and piles of pictures of people I did not know.  None of these findings shed any light on the name confusion.

So here I am, stuck with a name I made my own for sixty years and suddenly am not sure about.

It makes me sad and confused. I wonder why this never came up in a conversation with my parents while I could still talk to them. It makes me want to tell my daughters “Hey, I am still here, take a moment, let’s talk”.

But deep inside I am thinking, maybe my husband is right and a name is just a name. The thought makes me feel somehow lighter. I can see the humor and fun in this strange situation. “I am free!!!!” I am no longer a captive of a name I did not choose. I don’t have to carry on my shoulders old unknown relatives with a long and troubled past .I can even decide to change this old name and pick a new one. I can find a name that will reflect my real personality better then the old one, a name that will do justice to my sixty years of life experiences.