There are three boys here at Armijo named Ezekiel. While Ezekiel Tortal and Ezekiel “Zeke” Cohen say that they have never met the others, Ezekiel Roberts said that he has met them. “I’ve heard of, at most, a couple other students who even share my name, but personally never met them,” said Tortal. “I’ve found it to be quite a rare name here.”

“I have, in fact, heard of the ‘EZ-going’ pun on my name. People have tried other puns as well, but it’s just a hard name for others to make something clever with,” said Tortal.

Creative names seem to run in the family, or at least it does for Tortal and Cohen. “I have a sister who graduated from Armijo in the Class of 2016. Her first name is Czasmine – the ‘Cz’ is pronounced as a ‘Ch’ sound. The idea for this unique spelling of the name was inspired by Czechoslovakia,” said Tortal. Cohen has a twin by the name of Job, a name straight out of the Bible.

While they share the same first name, the three boys have different goals. Roberts plans to go into welding and he likes to spend his time playing baseball or participating in BMX and gaming activities. Cohen wants to go to college – maybe UCLA, Stanford, Florida State, Kentucky or Duke – to become either a musician or a professional athlete. He is already involved in basketball, football and track. Tortal wants to go to UCLA or UC Davis after graduating from Armijo. He said he’d probably take a summer to relax and get a summer job to make some quick cash before going into college. He is currently involved in marching band and tennis.

None of the boys were interested in changing their names but Tortal had the best reason: “I’m okay with my current… name because my initials spell out ‘ET,’ meaning I’m out of this world,” he said.