A very popular name at Armijo!
All in a Name – Luna
In contemporary anime, there are at least seven different characters named Luna. At Armijo, there are only six.
The anime Luna’s include Luna (aka Ruka or Luca), Leo’s fraternal twin sister in Yu-Gi-Oh 5D’s (https://japaneseanime.fandom.com/wiki/Luna); Luna, the go-to woman for those visiting the Adventure Guild in the Konosuba series (https://konosuba.fandom.com/wiki/Luna); Luna Wright from the Dr. Stone series, who is a former resident of the American Colony and “becomes enamored with Senku’s smarts and character; shifting allegiance to the Kingdom of Science and in turn getting a chance to date the young scientist” (https://dr stone.fandom.com/wiki/Luna_Wright); Luna Sakurakouji, a teen with red eyes and waist-length gray hair from the graphic novel Tsuki ni Yorisou Otome no Sahou (https://www.animecharactersdatabase.com/characters.php?id=50668) and Luna Platz (aka known as Luna Shirogane or Shirogane Runa), the leader of the group consisting of Geo Stelar, Bud Bison, and Zack Temple in the Mega Man franchise (https://megaman.fandom.com/wiki/Luna_Platz).
There are also two animal Luna’s: Princess Luna (or Nightmare Moon), who is an Alicorn pony and sister of Princess Celestia in the My Little Pony series (https://mlp.fandom.com/wiki/Princess_Luna); and, of course, Luna, the talking black-purple cat in Sailor Moon (https://sailormoon.fandom.com/wiki/Luna)(anime).
With all of these familiar characters, one would expect there to be more similarities with the Armijo students who bear their names, but the variety on campus is even more diverse than the variety in the world of anime.
Luna Bella Peralta, who is the Events editor for www.the-armijo-signal.com, has had many nicknames attached to her name, “such as Looney Tunes, Moon, and Looney. At first they were family inside jokes but even some classmates have caught on and joked around with the names. Over time I’ve come to be quite fond of them,” she said. “I can’t really imagine having any other name besides Luna. I honestly really like my name because most people don’t have it and I’m just overall so used to it.”
Peralta’s parents decided on Luna as it was the name of a restaurant near where they used to live. “They thought it sounded unique and found it a fitting name for myself,” she said.
Luna Vera Barrera almost missed out on having name so prevalent in anime. “My parents were going to name me Natali because my mother´s grandma was named Nathalia, but then my dad decided to name me Luna Melissa because at the last moment they liked the name,” she said. Still, she has thought about what it would have been liked to share a name derived from her grandmother.
Sometimes, when people meet her, they say the name Luna is pretty, but often they don’t say anything about it at all.
Luna Gonzalez said, “I’ve been told my parents used to watch novelas when they were younger. At the time my mom was pregnant with me, they both knew they were having a girl. In the show they had a Bohemian-like character named Luna who was very mystical and very beautiful.” Her father suggested it as a name for his daughter but her mother asked, “Who would name their child Moon?”
“My father was already telling the whole family that their unborn baby girl’s name would be Luna,” Gonzalez said. “He got a lot of feedback… Many people liked it and thought it was unique while others, like my mom, thought it was odd and didn’t like it.” In the end, obviously, her father won the debate.
When people first meet Gonzalez, “they either shoot me a quick compliment or ask curiously what it means and where my parents got it from,” she said.” I get a lot of people who ask me why they named me Luna if they are familiar with the translation.”
If she could choose or create a name, she said it would be Anchovy, not for herself but for a cat. Maybe that would be a better name for the cat in Sailor Moon?
While half of the Luna’s at Armijo have it as a first name, the other half share it as a last name. Two are brothers – Kai and Jeremy Luna – but the other is unrelated, Leilani.
Kai Luna was named in a creative way. “My name, Kai, comes from a Hawaiian origin, meaning ‘sea’, however I myself am not Hawaiian (I am Filipino),” he said. ‘I have a Spanish last name, Luna meaning ‘moon’. So my name means ‘Sea Moon’.” He has met someone else who had his first name, and she happened to be the daughter of one of his mother’s co-workers.
“I’ve had a few people say that I have a cool name, and I agree that it does sound like it came out of a graphic novel, and that I’m a crime fighter by night,” he said. “Having such a short name, I never really saw a point in having a nickname since it’s supposed to be a shorter version of your actual name, so anything else would just be unnecessary, like “Kai-Kai” or “Kaito” since they have extra syllables.” One of the nicknames that Kai has given himself is Lunacris, a play on his last name and the famous rapper Ludacris.
Jeremiah Luna shared that he got his last name from his Filipino ancestors. “I believe it is linked to General Antonio Luna who was a general that fought in the Philippine-American War during the 1800s,” he said. It is a name that he says reminds people of the moon, or the full moon.
If he could give himself a different name, Jeremiah said that he would choose ‘Bayani Luna’ “because Bayani means hero in Tagalog.”
For Laelani Luna, although she shares the name Luna with many other students at Armijo, the spelling of her first name makes her unique. “When people first hear my name, some people think I’m Hawaiian because Leilani or Laelani is a Hawaiian name,” she said. “Some of my family call me Lani (which makes her Lani Luna), and others call me Blondie or Cheekie. I used to have really big cheeks and brown-blonde hair when I was little.”
While she has no plans to change her last name in the near future, Laelani said that she would consider using her middle name, Jizelle, instead. Jizelle Luna has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?
