All in a name: Double-talk
“My mom met my dad at work, and he would always show up eating a banana,” said James Gonzalez Gonzalez. It seems a strange way to start a romantic relationship, but for that family, it worked.
In the Hispanic culture, it is not unusual for children to receive both the father’s and the mother’s last name, but when those last names are the same, it sometimes sounds like double talk. While some people haven’t met anyone with a double name, Maria Silva Silva is a little different. “My cousin has a double last name,” she said. “Sometimes I feel like I’m weird for having double last names... I would not change my first name because I like it; I would just change my last name so it won’t be doubled. “
Ingrid Gonzalez Gonzalez doesn’t find anything unusual about her name and she, too, has met other people outside of school with a double las name. Yoselin Birruete Birruete is used to people responding to her name when they hear it. “People have told me stuff, but they don’t joke about it,” she said. Jose Gonzalez Gonzalez gets questions about his last name sometimes. “I get asked if my parents are related somehow, but they are not,” he said.
When James’ introduces himself, he said, “people think I’m messing around or they don’t believe me.” If he could change his name, it isn’t the double last name that he would change. “I would change my first name to Brian because it was supposed to be my name,” he said.
Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” but perhaps these students with double names could be considered doubly sweet.
