What’s In a Name

You wouldn’t want to set  West Side Story in Puente Genil. Too many Marias.  “Maria, Maria, I just met thirty-eight girls named Maria”…it  just doesn’t ring right. In one of my classes, four of the seven female  students are named María. In this class surnames come in handy. We  have a María del Mar Seco, a María Cabello, a María Espejo, and a  María Cabeza. It so happens that each of these surnames also works  as a Spanish noun or adjective, and as a part-time student of Spanish  I can’t help translating them into English. As an example, María  del Mar Seco: “María del Mar” translates as a lovely “Mary of  the Sea,” but when we take “Seco,” or “dry,” into account,  we may get to wondering what her parents were smoking when they christened  her “Mary of the Dry Sea.” Of course, to María del Mar Seco’s  Spanish friends, “María del Mar Seco” does not mean “Mary of  the Dry Sea”—it is simply the name of their friend. Likewise with  María Cabello, which translates as “Mary Hair”; María Cabeza,  or “Mary Head”; and María Espejo, or “Mary  Mirror.” When I joked that maybe these three should get together and  open a beauty salon, nobody laughed—not because it’s an inane joke,  which of course it is, but because in the context of people called María,  “Cabello,” “Cabeza” and “Espejo” are names, not things.  Same goes for my colleagues Dolores Reina (Pains Queen), Inmaculada  Cejas (Immaculate Eyebrows), Isabel Mata (Elizabeth Kills), and Francisco  Gordo (Fat Francis).

Don’t think this kind of  thing can’t happen on your side of the Atlantic. It does. Say you  have a friend named Mary Brown. You don’t consider the color brown  every time her name comes up—you think of your friend Mary Brown,  who may be as white as a shark belly. There are a lot of Smiths in America,  in fact millions of Smiths in America, who do not work in smithies.

If you require celebrity examples  to validate things, consider these: Jack Black is not black at all.  He’s pretty damn white. When I say “George Bush,” a lot of things  may come to mind, but probably not plant matter, unless you’re looking  for something to compare his gray matter to.

As for Spanish celebrities,  “Antonio Banderas” means “Anthony Flags,” and “Paz Vega”  translates as “Peace Riverbank.” Miss Vega’s parents may be hippies—like  say the parents of the American girl I knew named “Sunshine,” who  was one of the most disagreeable people I’ve ever met—but they may  just as well be accountants. Way back when, the Penélope Cruz and Tom  Cruise affair presented a curious juxtaposition: their surnames sound  the same, but hers means “cross,” as in the thing Jesus Christ was  nailed to, and his may be taken to mean “to hunt for women,” as  in the kind of behavior that, we are told, nailed Jesus Christ to a  cross. No wonder it didn’t work out.

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Charlie Geer is the author of the novel “Outbound: The Curious Secession of Latter-Day Charleston.” His work has appeared in Tin House, The Sun, Bloomsbury Magazine, and The Southern Review.