I was one of those mothers who were looking for a special name for their baby. I recognize it. And I found it: with a lot of meaning for her father and for me and the strength we wanted our daughter to have. And yes, it is true, I think Kenya has an incredible personality partly thanks to what it is called (and many other things, of course).
So when I got pregnant with his brother, the same fight again: we had to call him in a unique way, because he is as important as his sister.
And it is that finding the perfect name for our baby is an important question (for most parents) and takes time during pregnancy. In Spain, the Registry allows almost all names, “as long as the person is not objectively harmed and their identification is not confused .” Parents jump into making up names and there are even professionals who help in the task of finding that unique name for the baby .
‘Almost’ all names are valid
Spend hours deciding the name for your baby and then have it rejected in the Civil Registry? It happens and more often than we think. Because, although the rules seem simple, each year the pending fights in the civil registries arrive at the General Directorate of Registries and Notaries.
Among those ‘curious’ names, that of ‘Lobo’, as some parents in Madrid insisted on calling their son and they fought until they succeeded.
But also ‘Cariño’ (because it is still a nickname), ‘Lluvia de Abril’ (because Abril can be a surname), ‘Iune’ (because the Academy of the Basque Language recognizes June, not Iune) … are names that they have not been admitted to the Civil Registry of different provinces.
According to the Ministry of Justice, today almost all names are possible, as long as the person is not objectively harmed and their identification is not confused : a surname converted into a name or, for example, a name that is misleading. about sex.
This is the case, for example, of Ari, which according to the Mataró Registry is not acceptable because it may be the diminutive of Ariel or Ariadna.
No more than two simple names or one compound can be imposed and no brother can be attributed the name of another living brother.
There is also no shortage of parents who regret the time of their choice, or the adult who fights to change the name that his parents gave him.
But the Ministry of Justice maintains that to change a name a “just cause” is needed: when it is shown that a name other than the one that appears in the Registry is usually used to translate a foreign name or adapt it to the official languages of the country.
Transsexuality is also a valid reason to change the name of a child in the Registry, without having to wait until he is of legal age. Easier since it was approved a little over a month ago, the possibility that “transgender minors who have sufficient maturity” can also change their sex in the Registry.
My search for “unique” names
As Raúl and Sergio Ituero, the creators of Aván & Era (a company ‘searching for new names’), explain to Babies and More , “the requests of parents are the most varied: *” may it sound tender “,” may it have strength ” , “That has personality” or “that has a beautiful meaning” . *
In my case, I identify with two of them: that it has a special meaning for the family and that it has strength. I know this is just an example (and maybe not even a good one) but if you are going to be a mother and you doubt where to start looking, maybe my experience can help you. At least, in my day I would have liked someone to guide me where to start.
I am a tireless traveler and there are countries, places, names that leave a special mark on you. And it was from there that we began to consider possible names for our son the same day that the pregnancy test came back positive.
As an Asturian, I was seduced (her father and I were) by the idea of a name that would remind our daughter of her origins, but all those that attracted us as a girl (Xana, Xandra …) included the ‘letter X’ and grandparents and even other children had difficulty pronouncing it. So goodbye to the idea, because we did not want (like all parents) our daughter to be the subject of jokes or misunderstandings.
On the other hand, our last trip had been to Kenya and we fell in love with the savannah, so we continued there: Africa, Kenya, Savannah … And the name of the country gained, as it is written in origin, with ‘and’. We had to endure the jokes and rejection of the family calling us crazy and even bad parents because we were going to brand our daughter with an absurd name forever.
But we let ourselves be guided by the heart and today my daughter is a brave, successful and happy young woman who proudly carries a name that she has always defended and corrected, when they try to write the country in Spanish: “My name is Kenya, like the country .” You can like it more or less but it never goes indifferent.
As for my second son, the search was even more intense, because we wanted him to be just as special as his sister’s. So we started investigating Quechua and indigenous names, because our last destination had been the Amazon, in Peru, and we were hooked by the people, the jungle … But the names, with wonderful meanings, were impossible to pronounce and we feared total bullying. our son.
So since the child would be born in Madrid, we resumed the possibility of looking at my origins and, eliminating the options with ‘X’ again (Xavier, Xandro, Xenaro …), we arrived at Yago, Santiago in Asturian . And, again, it seems that we have got it right, although it is not such an exclusive name. As soon as someone asks him if he is Galician, by name, he immediately takes care of clarifying: “My name is Yago no Iago, which is how it is written in Galician” and so happy. Because yes, he is a happy boy, with a short name, who reminds him that his maternal family is from the land.
Professionals “invent” a name for your baby
The risk that we run when creating a new name is that the Civil Registry does not admit it, because it is not written anywhere nor is it used.
But for brothers Sergio and Raúl, the creative minds at Aván & Era, this is not a problem. They have already invented names for parents without being rejected.
Raúl tells us that they are publicists by profession, specialists in ‘verbal identity’. In 2012 they created the Damenáme brand, where they have created names for very diverse companies, such as ‘Berídico’ or ‘Quesito Films’ and three years later it occurred to them to “use this knowledge when naming for the benefit of parents who they are about to have a baby and are wrapped in cocoa, which is, to name it “.
Nine months later Eire was born, the first girl in Europe whose name was proposed by a company. They claim that they did and continue to do so for free through their Facebook page.
“We quickly began to receive requests that affected the originality of the name, and that’s where Aván & Era arose.”
This is how a unique name is achieved
Raúl explains that:
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They first have an interview with the parents, either in person, by Skype or by phone in the last case. They ask them about their preferences: favorite languages, if they want it to be long or short, compound, taboo letters, initials … They assure that “many specifications arise, since it is a tailored suit”.
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When they have all that information they use creativity techniques such as brainstorming , mind maps, random words and others invented by them. They also do pure historical research and “consult hundreds of dictionaries.”
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When we get to a list of about a hundred names that we like, we see which ones mesh better with the surnames of the parents and finally we check that there is no such name in the National Institute of Statistics.
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They are usually new names, but they have sometimes rescued names “that were buried under a pile of years.”
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And, as “almost all names are possible, as long as the person is not objectively harmed” , they study that ‘almost’ in particular and that depends on the subjectivity of the official. They do some pre-work to make sure there will be no enrollment problems.
A unique concrete example in the world
The directors of Aván & Era assure that “what interests us most is the privacy of minors and that is why we signed a confidentiality contract with the parents in which we undertake never to reveal the names presented” .
So when we ask them to develop a particular case for us, they pull a made-up example:
“Let’s imagine that two future parents of a girl contact us: Inma Vega and Francisco Arroyo. Inma is Asturian and Francisco from Madrid. They would like the name to have a bit of each other’s land and for the Vega surname to go in the first place, because he is about to lose himself in his family.
The first thing we detect is that Vega means “low ground on the banks of a river” and Arroyo is a “small river”. That coincidence, that water is present in their two surnames, invites us to investigate there. We look if there is something in Madrid that refers us to ‘water’, and we find it. We discover that it is in the very etymology of the city: Madrid in Arabic was called Mayrit, which means “channel”. Even archaeologists found a beautiful motto on the city walls: “I went on built-up water, my walls are on fire.”
On the other hand, we searched Asturian mythology and discovered that there is a goddess of water and femininity called Deva. We started making combinations with Mayrit and Deva and, among many, we chose Devay . “
They explain that the last thing they do is search the INE (National Institute of Statistics). And after verifying that there is no one named that way, they present it to their clients along with two other options.
Perhaps they should be careful because someone may “lovingly” steal their name that serves as an example and they will have to find another one. How about?
Via | ABC
Photos | iStock
In Babies and More | Girl names that are trending in 2019, Boy names that are trending in 2019
