Dandelion Naming

My mother's maiden name was Crowe, which had been changed from Raven to a more English sounding name, which had been changed from Tulugaqukiuq. Tulugaqukiuq, Southern Qikiqtaaluk dialect of Inuit for a raven that stays put through the winter instead of leaving. On her mother's side Edwards was a lovely Britishification of Epstein, a blatantly Jewish surname that was tossed out along with the faith, just as any Inuit faith had been through out with her father's, grandfather's, and great-grandfather's name changes.

My father was perfect for her. Higgins hardly even has an etymology that makes logical sense. Forever holding a lifelong grudge against his father and his father's culture just because the man divorced his mother, my father was happy to throw away the Serbian surname Vićentijević in spite of his great-grandparents who bore that name all the way to the concentration camp at Sarajevo. Like my mother he threw Judaism away, clinging to the Irish Catholicism favored by his stepfather and snagging the surname Higgins in the process. His mother was ignored and reduced to a non-entity, making the choice to ditch the surname Surroi and all its' Albanian implications.

What is my name? A well crafted lie my parents and their families put excessive effort into. Kenneth, British-Irish first name. Edward, English and old fashioned middle name. Higgins, stolen Irish surname. You would never know from the name I bear the Jewish heritage that thrums in my veins, the ancestors who died for being of the 'wrong' faith, the Inuit ones who live in poverty in their own land now thanks to white people. You will never glance at my name and process it as anything more or less than 'normal' by the standards of the United States.

Names are disguises, masks that keep my parents safe from truths they don't like. Names keep their children from ever having to cringe during a movie about the Holocaust with the knowledge that we lost family to it. They keep us employed and never discriminated against while also throwing up a wall between us and our people, our heritage, languages spoken by generations past, immigrant stories of brave people we're descended from, tribal history going back centuries.

A rose by the name dandelion, spraypainted yellow, bears none of the romantic or authentic traits of the origin.