Sofia, Beatriz, and Hemingwei

The first two names have been in the news of late. One cannot miss Sofia Vergara’s image as her attractive figure, winsome smile, and an effective public relations office grace her popular cleavage. I only have one complaint. It feels incestuous to look at her from any angle.

Beatriz’ name is not as well publicized, though change the “z” to an “x” and you are with royalty of the Netherlands, but Beatriz Vergara of California etched her name into judicial history. Beatriz, along with her sister Elizabeth, figured prominently in the latest California Supreme Court bombshell that decided the automatic tenure of teachers by longevity of employ rather than a gauge on efficacy of pedagogy. In layman’s term, teachers were protected even if they do not teach well, while students have no guarantee that they will learn from excellence. Not that there is ever a guarantee on either, but the Vergara v. California established a precedence where systems that follow the last-one-in, first-one-out of deciding employ of teachers is out.

For Sofia who is from Columbia, Beatriz and Elizabeth from California, the tie is on the Hispanic nombre de Vergara, spelled Bergara, a town in the Basque country on the western slopes of the Pyrenees in Spain where I, and my family, too, traces the wellhead of our family name.

It is in the name and the naming process that we direct our reflection. It was in Chile and Peru that I encountered a preponderance of Vergaras. I made a quip in a formal Chilean gathering by saying that I always suspected my grandfather traveled far and wide. Those who got my jest did not appreciate my sense of humor, and it was just as well that some missed the allusion altogether.

It was a French girl in Peru who said that Vergara is not only common on the western slopes of Sud America but its French equivalent Bergerac was also a common run-of-the-mill name, as in Cyrano de Bergerac, the swordsman with the elongated nose. In some parts of Europe, a name identifies where a clan is from (Tomas de Aquino for Thomas Aquinas), so people with the same last name tend to be from the same geographical location. The fact that one out of four Koreans is named Kim is traceable to an imperial edict that royalties came from Kim, explaining the name’s preponderance on both sides of the 38th parallel divide.

Discovery of my last name actually came as a shock. Being nationalistic in my youth, regionalistic in allegiance (I campaigned for Ilocano Tony Quirino); pride in heroes of Ilokandia was in my blood, until I discovered that the Vergara brothers were mercenaries from Macabebe, Pampanga, sent to put down the Ilocano rebellions of the Silang (Diego and Gabriella) but decided to settle in San Esteban, Ilocos Sur (where Papa is from) rather than return to Central Luzon.

So, OK, we’ve got Vergaras explained. Where does Hemingwei fit in? Though I had been to Madrid, learned of Calle Principe de Vergara, I think my family name had nothing to do with DNA as it came to us in keeping with the Spanish practice of naming natives with the name of a Spanish town.

There is the matter of pronunciation in mine. “J” is pronounced like “H” as in Jose (Ho-seh) but “Jaime” in English often begins with the “Jay” sound, and in French, the “Sh” sound (I appropriated j’aime la vie, an uncommon phrase for “I love life”). The administrators at the university where I last taught spelled my name as “Hemi” they used in e-mails and bulletin board notices. University students who had to navigate their way through The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway in high school, called me by the same name, which I spelled “Hemingwei” to fit the local setting.

What’s in a name? As a poet once said, a rose by any other name is still a rose. In an earlier article, I decided to pick up various meanings of Hemingwei parsed by syllables as he, meaning “gentle,” ming, “regal,” and wei, the affirmative “YES!” Hemingwei thus quickly became my name in class as the “gentle but affirming royal.” The point is that our names, given or decided, reflect the story of our identity.

Sofia the Columbian movie star is also full of wisdom in her pulchritude, by all accounts, congruent to the godhead’s Sophia. Beatriz and Elizabeth were high school students when their case was taken to court, but their names are definitely royal, in their case a feminine assertiveness to make sure that they got the education they deserved from qualified pedagogues.

Still Jaime, I am known in China as Mr. H in emails and Hemingwei when called. I chose its meaning to tell of my identity among many possible options, given the four tones in Chinese syllabication and the various characters that symbolizes them.

As our first names have their own significance, our last names have meanings of their own. Bergara derives from the Berbers of the nomadic shepherding tradition that expanded from the Middle East to Scotland through Greece up north to the Carpathians and west to the Pyrenees. With a name that means “a gentle but regally affirming shepherd,” I not only am clear of my identity but my vocation as well.

What’s in your name?