Peculiar Yucatecan Names

by Yours Truly - October, 2001

Have I ever written anything about Yucatecan names? Not the names of the towns - like Mani, which is hilariously translated as the town of Peanut (seriously) on an official Yucatan government website worth visiting and laughing your entrails out, that I wrote about on another occasion (it's in the BackIssues somewhere) - but the names people force upon their children, thinking a) how cute, b) how gringo-sounding or c) how can I screw up my child's chances of ever being taken seriously as an adult. No I don't think I have. The local paper had a wonderful Sociales section the other day that inspired me to write this little blurb.

Yucatecan names come in all shapes and sizes. There are the traditional names like Carlos, Javier, Alejandra, Ana Maria, etc.; there are the biblical references like Maria Jose, Jose Maria and Isaac (how'd you like to be called Mary Joseph or Joseph Mary?); the soap opera references like Marimar; the Arab influenced creations such as Omar, Yusef,  Fátima and so on; the names long since taken out of circulation in Anglo society such as Edith, Estela, Mabel (Mabel!!)Bertha and Olga and the last group, my personal favorite and that of many other fine folks as well, the names that are pure fiction; invented to sound English perhaps, combinations of letters and sounds that roll off the tongue as if you were pronouncing place names in Wyoming.

Here is a short and by no means complete list of some of the more interesting names in this last category that this neurotic foreigner has come to know and love. Names that are synonymous with all things Yucatecan and lovely to behold. I can only imagine what these people must go through when they finally grow up and want to move to anyplace else besides the lovely and peculiar city of Merida and their names stop being cute....notice that most are girls names, boys seem to get off a little easier in the names department...

As I said before, this is by no means a comprehensive list, and there are many, many others that many Yucatecans would be quick to point out to me and that I have forgotten. There are more. This is just a taste of some of the more interesting examples to be found in modern Merida, that caught the eye of this neurotic foreigner.

This is not intended as a stinging criticism of how Yucatecans name their babies, although it will probably be perceived as such by some readers. If I was to criticize, there is much to write about regarding the Cubans choice of names, given their secluded and isolate island status and the many years of domination by a completely foreign culture, namely the U.S.S.R. Or how about the names popping up in the Anglo world like Ashley or Ford, or some other dipstick invention that sounds more like a desperate attempt at individuality. Then there are all the black American names complete with commas in the most unlikely places... No, it's not an outright criticism; it's the way it is. And I'm writing about it. So there.


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