Four students full of X-citement

All in a name

It is rather unusual to have an X as the initial of your first name and only four of the students enrolled at Armijo can make this claim to fame. Of those four, three of them have nicknames that they use, names that don’t start with X.

Xayvion Gregory is one of our X-men, but he doesn’t know any of the other three who share his first initial. Xavier Sparks, who goes by “Zave,” said that the only other person he knows with an X for an initial is his father, who is also named Xavier.

The two Armijo girls who start their names with X are Ximena Rodriguez, who turned down our requests for an interview, and Xuyen Tran, who goes by “Suzan” or “Su.” Tran’s sister has another unusual name – both her first and last names are Tran. Tran also has twin sisters who attend Armijo: “Their names are Nghi Tran Bao and Nghi Tran My, following [the Vietnamese tradition of] first, last and middle names,” she said.

The boys, on the other hand, stand out for unusual names in their families: Sparks has two brothers and Gregory has three brothers, including a pair of one-year old twins, but none of their names are extraordinary. Sparks does have a cousin named Dae who attends Armijo, and Gregory’s mother is an alumna of the school. Gregory is also related to Dr. Dre, the Rap singer.

Gregory sometimes has people comment on how unique his name is, but Tran has seen the difference in reactions between her home country and the United States. “For Vietnamese, many people have considered my name as beautiful since it has a meaning of attractive. But for people in the US, the teachers or friends found it hard to pronounce it,” she said. “When my mom was pregnant…the doctor said I would suffer from a strange kind of sickness. He said that my immune system was too weak to handle this so I would need to be moved to another room for special treatment… I had no hair and… was intensively itchy… for about two weeks before I could return to my mom warmth’s. And that is why she named me this beautiful name, with the hope that my life will be pretty without suffering and I can grow up as attractive as my name.”

While the four students share some things in common, including their first initial, they are also rather unique. Sparks said that he hates distance learning, and is considering going to college at the University of San Diego, but he’s mostly interested in the opportunity to play basketball and football, perhaps even at Armijo. His favorite type of music is rap.

Gregory, who sometimes goes by Babyion, doesn’t like distance learning either. He hopes to become a doctor but is not sure where he wants to go to school. He’d like to play a sport for Armijo but didn’t mention which one, and he likes all kinds of music.

Tran is considering joining the military when she graduates from Armijo in 2022. She might first go to Solano Community College since it is near her home and where her older sister attends. As for distance learning, she said, “I feel it is a little bit hard for me since I am not good with English and my English is very limited. Everything I do, I have to ask for help from my older sister.” Her favorite type of music is K-pop and USUK. “I enjoying covering their dances,” she said.

Names help us be unique, but truly unusual names add to that and make individuals stand out in a crowd and an X will often mark the spot where someone became famous, or at least familiar.