Double Z brings this name to the front

All in a name – Zaniya Zedd

Zaniyahs name brings her lots of attention.

ID photo

Zaniyah’s name brings her lots of attention.

When you have the last name starts with Z, you know that your name will put you at the end of the alphabet, but freshman Zaniyah Zedd’s family wanted to take it one step further by having her first name also start with that last letter. “My grandma gave me my first name,” said Zedd. “I have two middle names, too: Renee, which is my mother’s middle name, and Shylene after my grandma Cynthia Ilene.

While her name is unusual, she isn’t the only on in her family to have it. “I met a cousin in middle school and her first name is Zaniyah.” A couple of her cousins also have unusual names: Cynia and Taniyah.

Often, when people hear Zedd’s first name, they say something like, “Wow, that’s a pretty name, what is that again? Zaniyah? Now that’s really cute.” Her family also has nicknames for her. “My parents both call me ‘Niyah Poo’ and ‘Poo Poo’,” she said. “My grandma sings a little song. It goes” ‘Niyah, Niyah, pants on fire, hanging from a telephone wire.”

Zedd said that, if she could create her own name, it would be “Amazing, because I’m amazing.”

As a freshman, this was her first year at Armijo has been interesting, to say the least. Without the opportunity to attend until mid-April, she said that she felt like she “lost friends and or future friends.”

In eighth grade, before the pandemic, she was active in school “I was on the volleyball team and part of the dance team,” she said. “I also came up with ideas for different activities.” While she is already looking forward to her next three years at Armijo, she has also thought out her plans after graduation. “I plan to go to Solano, but I’m indecisive about my major just yet.”