What's in a name?

I know my name can be a challenge to read, spell, and pronounce. It is in every sense 'unique'. I have come to appreciate it for its distinct sound and spelling. In all my years, I have only met one person who, upon reading it, pronounced it correctly. She worked at the University of Arizona in the Office of the Registrar. I recall that memory so vividly. The terrible statistics regarding the mispronunciation of my name dawned upon me at that time. I had never hated my name because it was given to me. It became a part of me, an identifier of my personality, and I loved me. Yet, I was conflicted. I knew that through out my life, I would need to correct, instruct, and repeat to others how to say my name. You see, my name does not follow the designated sounds of English phonetics. I tried to circumvent this as a graduate student, when I taught an undergraduate microbiology class for a couple semesters. In the signature of my email, I put in parentheses "Ha-z/s-mean". It's hard to say if it worked or not. The students picked up on the correct pronunciation pretty quickly. However, if their life depended on the correct spelling of my name, few would have lived. My name is spelled with six letters: X-A-Z-M-I-N. There is no "H", "S" nor an "E", which is a common mistake to make. Fortunately, I am not picky when it comes to the spelling. My name hearkens back to an older era of Spanish usage, when "X" sounded like "H' (e.g think of Xavier, which nowadays is spelled Javier). The Spanish pronunciation of the letter Z may be the cause of confusion for those who spell my name with S rather than Z. The "I" sounds like a long "E" and voila, with all those hints you get Xazmin. Ha. 

But whatever I have written thus far about my name is trivial. In truth, I love the complexity, the trickery, the oddity of its letters and sounds. I also love the beauty of what it represents, which brings me to the question I am most often asked, "what does Xazmin translate to in English?"

Jasmine flowers (Google image)

Answer: It refers to the Jasmine flower. :)

Today, I found another reason to love my name. As I scrolled through my Facebook newsfeed, I came across a buzzfeed news profile of 16 Women Entrepreneurs in the Arab World. I opened the page and read it. I noticed that three of the sixteen women were named Yasmin* or Yasmine. Quick research on my part revealed Yasmin is derived from the old Persian word for the Jasmine flower, which is native to the regions of the Old World. As I read the short profiles of the work that the highlighted women were engaged in, I smiled and my heart grew two times bigger. Through the power of a shared name, I felt more united with their goals; for I, also, desire to be a force for good in this world. Upon reading their names, I sought to understand my own. I can happily write that I love it more than I did yesterday. My name has migrated through time from Old Persia to Old Spanish to be bestowed upon a descendent of the "New World". It's quite amazing to me.


*profiles below are adapted from Arab Women Rising: 35 Entrepreneurs Making a Difference in the Arab World by Nafeesa Syeed and Rahilla Zafar, published by Knowledge@Wharton, 2014
 
#5. Dr. Yasmin Altwaijri

Yasmin is one of Saudi Arabia’s most senior scientists and a pioneer in the study of obesity, diabetes, and mental health issues in her country. She hopes that her work can help to raise awareness about mental health issues and lower stigmas associated with the diseases.  

#8. Yasmine El-Mehairy

Egyptian Yasmine El-Mehairy found herself frustrated that there was no online platforms that resonated with many mothers in the Middle East. So she created the pan-Arab parenting site SuperMama, which offers an array for information from pregnancy tips to cooking videos. El-Mehairy made sure that SuperMama is in Arabic and written and produced by Arabs. 

#16. Yasmin Helal

Yasmin Helal is a former pro-basketball player and engineer. Now she’s founded and runs Educate-Me, an initiative in Cairo that works to improve education for underprivileged kids and redefine education.