As someone with a bizarre name – well, a bizarre form of a common name – I’ve always been a little obsessed with the etymologies of names – where they come from and what they mean. Elizabeth, for example is a more modern form of a Hebrew name: Elisheba. Composed of two parts meaning “God” and “abundant” – the name can be interpreted as meaning “God is abundant.” The Biblical Elisheba was the wife of Aaron – the name given to my older brother. One of Aaron and Elisheba’s descendants is Elisabet/Elizabeth. That Elizabeth waited 80 years to bear a child that God promised her and then gave birth to John the Baptist. The name Elizabeth therefore carries the meaning of “bearer of God’s oath.”
The meaning of Aaron in Hebrew is unclear, but it may have originated in Ancient Egypt meaning high place, heaven, or warrior lion. My mom definitely didn’t intend for him to be a warrior or a lion, nor did she intend for me to be a geriatric mother, I’m sure. It strikes me as odd how these days, our names are mostly divorced from their original meanings. I’ve always been fascinated by the way humans started using language to give each other and themselves these names, these identifiers that become a big part of our identity.
In fact, our names may even have a lot more dominion over our identities than we know. Nominative determinism is a theory that basically asserts that our names, first and last, can subtly influence our character and our life choices, leading us to embody the traits or “type” associated with our names, or take on jobs that suit the meaning or sound of our names. Research supports a correlation between “Bakers” who make pastries, “Judges” who preside over courts, and even men named “Dennis” who become dentists. There are different factors that may explain these cases, but we can all recall anecdotal evidence of nominative determinism. I’ve tracked it for years as a fan of Formula 1 Racing – some of the drivers throughout history have had names that lead you to believe they were born to be on a race track: Alberto Ascari, Bernard de Dryver, Carlos Pace. (Although to play devil’s advocate – a lot of names of race car drivers do just sound like race car drivers once you know that’s what they are. And if nominative determinism held 100% of the time, the American driver Bob Said really should’ve gone into journalism.)
To my outsider eyes in Armenia, name meanings seem a lot closer to the surface. They’re a remembered and connected thing. Here, names seem to be given both with respect to the family and as a bestowed wish for the child’s future. For a child to achieve nominative determinism is the unstated goal. Naming a baby after their grandfather is a hope that he’ll live up to that great man’s legacy, for instance. Naming a baby girl ‘happy’ is a wish that she will be. These deterministic names are not just adjectives, but nouns, the names of holy figures, holy places. In Armenia, you’ll meet hundreds of men and women named not only for their country and its namesakes (Armen/Armine, Hayk/Haykuhi) but also for cities, villages, and monasteries (Sisian, Shaki, Tatev). Then you have hoards of men walking around carrying the burden of living up to the name of the majestic mountain Ararat.
For girls, common names include Geghetsik or Sirun – beautiful or lovely. The names Arev, sun, or its diminutive form Arevik, little sun, seems to be a hope for a “bright” daughter. Very common is “Anush/Anoush” meaning sweet. In a comedy show skit last night, the butt of all the jokes was a character called “Nshandrek.” The actress was done up to look “ugly” with buck-teeth, a mole, and unfortunate hair and the character explained – to the crowd’s laughter – “My parents saw as a baby how ugly I was, but still hoped I would get married one day, so they named me engagement.”
For boys, the desired qualities are a bit different. There are many forms for calling your son “strong”: Artyom, a name from Russian; Arsen, from Greek. If you’d prefer a speedy son, name him Artak or Yervand.” A boy in my 8th grade class is named Karapet, “leader” or “prophet.” My brightest 7th grade boy is Aghasi, “master.” Boys are often named after kings, saints, and war heroes. In a culture where parents start speculating a child’s future career at age 1, it’s hard to imagine that names aren’t given with thought to molding the child’s future, at least in terms of wishful thinking. (You can’t help but notice a league of men carrying the name “Manuk” into adulthood, though – “child.” But it’s not my place to analyze that too deeply.)
And as a culmination of all of this, it’s fitting that my recent research into Armenian name meanings has led me to believe that the name Nune means “saint.” (For some help with pronunciation, put on a Canadian accent and tell someone it’s midday or, “it’s noon, eh.”) Nune comes from an Assyrian name Nunos meaning “saint” or “innocent.” My housemate Nune’s surname is derived from Greek and means “king.” Overall this name suits her. Why? Because the Nune I know must be a royal saint to put up with me.
Nune is my landlord/host mother/whatever-you-call-it, but mostly I just consider her a friend. At a recent birthday party for her oldest grandchild (he’s 4 now) she introduced me to family members as a tenant. However when an aunt was taken aback, “I thought I recognized you from somewhere! I was thinking you must be Nune’s third daughter!” Nune’s reply was, “well, she basically is” with a smile. She alternates between calling me her guest and her daughter, and that represents the odd limbo that we live in together well. I do blend in with the family, though. Nune’s younger daughter was born in the same year I was. And in one comical incident a very distant older male cousin embraced me upon meeting and then praised Nune for “naming” me “Elizabet” – “Apres, Nune, how wonderful you named her after our grandmother!” He knew she had a daughter my age and connected the dots. Nune’s mother’s mother’s name was Yeghispet, an Armenian form of Elizabeth.
Still, despite our uncanny connections, I try to avoid calling her my “host mother” not because we aren’t close, but because I think that actually undersells or undermines our relationship. But that starts to give away why she’s a saint…
I’m aware at this point in my life, at 25 years of age, that I am a difficult person to live with. You could ask my college roommates – in five years I had just three, and only one stuck it out for an entire year. Or you can ask the two host families I had last year. I’m sure the first would say I was pleasant enough to live with, though mostly I was constantly tired and spoke very little of the same language as them – oh, and I don’t call or visit enough now. The second family would probably tell you the universal truths of living with me: I’m reclusive, moody, and very particular. If I could rename myself in Armenian, I would christen me Azat – free, independent. Or Dezhvar… difficult (I hope no one has ever been unlucky to get this name, but maybe some particularly finnicky babies).
Last February, I moved out of the house where I’d been living independently and moved in with Nune, my then next-door neighbor and colleague. Nune is our school’s “librarian” which I’ve learned means that she actually runs the whole place. She helps with scheduling, the school budget, and ordering books, supplies, and food shipments for our school lunch program. Our director is Nune’s cousin by marriage and through that familial connection and Nune’s innate Competence in All Things, responsibilities just seem to fall her way. I’ve seen Nune do more paperwork in the summer than I’ve seen most teachers do all year, and she’s a woman who gets things done, which I respect immensely.
Nune’s responsibilities in her personal life run the gamut from mother, grandmother, wife, daughter-in-law, best friend, master chef, neighborhood fortune teller, and cultural shepherd to me. Today, a neighbor called Nune twice for advice on baking a cake for her husband’s birthday. Nune’s best friend claims Nune has “a gift from God” at seeing omens in overturned coffee cups. Nune for her part, claims to have no such gift. As she “reads” the coffee grounds in her best friend’s cup, she winks at me and ponders “What can I tell you? What will make you happy to hear?” Then she reads the first letter of the friend’s husband’s name in the grounds and predicts a happier time in her marriage. Nune cares about her friends and family immensely and for the most part doesn’t partake in negativity like gossip. She moves through life in a very calm and easygoing way that I know I will never be able to embody, but hope to emulate on the surface.
Where most people don’t have the patience to explain aspects of Armenian culture to me in ways I’ll understand – or worse, they don’t try because they assume I won’t be interested in knowing, Nune has the patience. I can’t tell if she can recognize the interest I have in Armenian culture, or if she doesn’t and she’s just determined to force it. I’ve learned more about wedding traditions, Armenian cooking, winter preparation, common expressions, and Armenian humor from Nune than anyone else at this point.
I worry about how people perceive me here as I try as hard as I can to “be myself” in a culture and language that aren’t necessarily conducive to that. (It’s hard to even literally be myself here, be “Alyzabeth” or even “Lyz” when instead I am “Eliza” or “Elizabeta.” I think I am forgetting how my first name is actually pronounced.) But Nune finds ways to defend me and my right to be myself. If someone hears me botch an Armenian word or mis-conjugate a verb and starts turning their nose up, Nune reminds everyone “She learned Armenian in two months! Isn’t that great? Two months!” And for the more reluctant she tacks on, “Well, could you learn English in two months?” And just once, “Go on then, try. Learn English in two months.” She seems proud of my intellect, my accomplishments, not as if she were my own mother, but as a friend.
It’s of no consequence to Nune that I insist on doing things my own way, that I cook my own food, that I pet stray dogs (as long as I wash my hands after), that I am an unmarried woman, or more scandalously, that I’m in a relationship with a non-Armenian man. Despite a brief aside here and there about the dangers of drinking so much soda or forgetting my coat, kindly delivered with the phrase “ko hamar em asum” (I’m speaking for you/in your interest), I do not generally feel judged living with Nune, which is a miracle because wow, I am a weird person with odd habits and I’m super easy to judge. Like, I have to eat sweets first thing in the morning to settle my stomach, I compulsively brush my hair a hundred times a day, and when I’m sad I just sit and eat Nutella with a spoon which yeah, Armenians think is Very Strange Indeed. I also cry sometimes, which Nune doesn’t necessarily approve of. “We all have hard lives, we all have people we miss, but none of that is worth crying over. Everyone has hard lives and no one else is crying.” This can be frustrating, but I also admire her strength.
Nune has found the perfect balance between letting me be me and including me in family activities, like the aforementioned 4th birthday party, family dinners, or the recent “birth”-day party for her newest newborn twin grandchildren (named after their paternal grandparents – Qnqush “gentle” and Gevorg, a form of George, which itself means “farmer”). I feel welcome and invited but not pressured to always go or to spend every second with family. I even got three days’ notice for the 4th birthday party, which gave me the time to plan ahead and made me feel at ease. When we have a lot of family over, I can retreat to my room without comment – Nune knows that crowds can be stressful for me. She knows I get nervous about a lot of things – teaching, tests, and travel. She gives me food with the disclaimer to not eat what I don’t want.
In short, if my Nune were the first Nune and I were the first Elizabeth to walk the Earth (jury’s still out on whether or not I’m the first Alyzabeth, but I think not), then I think Elizabeth would come to mean “she who is difficult to live with” and for all time Nune will continue to mean “saint.”
I’ve gone back and forth a lot on whether or not I wish my own name was something more in line with nominative determinism, if it were a trait I could embody like Hope or Faith or if my surname were a profession I could’ve gravitated toward like Barber. It is possible that I’ve spent my whole life trying to outrun my surname, which means, colloquially at least – “uneducated poor people.” As for my first name, it’s not something I can live up to myself, it’s “God has promised.” What it is or if it will manifest is not up to me. That’s on him, I suppose, but if it means I have a favor to call in one day with the big man, then I’m on board.
P.S./Հ․Գ․ While “researching” this post (distractedly multi-tasking and reading up on Formula 1 history) I am happy to have learned about Levon “Fred” Agabashian, an F1, Indy car, and funny car driver of the 1950s. Born in California in 1913, he is the only F1 driver of clear Armenian-American (or clear Armenian) descent. Levon is derived from Greek and means “lion.” Fred is a Germanic name meaning “peaceful ruler.” He picked up the nickname “Doc” for his uncanny ability to “diagnose” problems in cars that he test drove.
Alyza in Armenia 