UH-LAWN-DER-AH.

That would be the english pronunciation of my name, Alondra. It’s a messed up name, I know. Well, maybe not messed up, but different.

Different.

I always cringe when I hear my name being said. It’s a disgusting sound coming off of your tongue and being pushed out into the air. It’s clunky and doesn’t quite know what to do with itself. It trips out of your mouth and lands face first onto the floor below you, scrambling to pick itself up again to look somewhat presentable.
Say it with me this time: Alondra. You can’t just go in stressing different vowels and consonants when you’re not supposed to, that’s barbaric! My name needs to be treated gently and with care, as if it were a newborn lamb, for Christ’s sake. Haven’t you ever seen a newborn name? I’m not talking about babies who were just born and just given a name, no, I’m talking about names that don’t know what to do with themselves yet. I’m talking about names that, despite their age, are still trying to figure themselves out and find out what it is they were meant for. My name isn’t some worn out shirt that sits at the bottom of our laundry basket, it’s a relatively new name that was developed in the late eighteen hundreds and was mainly used in Latin countries. So, you could say it’s a shirt that is new but no one has bothered to wear because it’s a bit risky to test out something that different.

In Spanish, it directly translates to “lark” - a type of bird. Imagine hearing someone say, “dude, check out how fast that alondra was going!”, or, “that alondra is the fattest bird I have ever seen.” I often bring that up with my parents, seeing as they were the culprits of my terrible name. I distinctly remember a conversation between me and my mother:

“Mom, why’d you name me Alondra?”

“Well, there was a really good novella on TV during the time I was pregnant with you, mija, and the  main character was named Alondra…”

I don’t remember anything after that, actually. Thank you, mom! Good to know I was named after one of your favorite TV characters.

The other origin of my name that I know of is the english meaning of my name, which, in my opinion, is pretty sick. “Defender or helper of mankind,” is what I have engraved in my mind ever since I looked up my name on some baby name website. Defender of mankind. Of mankind.  I have an entire race to look after and seven billion people to clean up after, and I’m still in high school. My name still doesn’t even know how to talk for itself and the world wants me to look after it. I still watch saturday morning cartoons and somehow I need to learn how to fight off the impending alien battle that will undoubtedly happen sooner or later. All of this jam packed into a terrified, wide-eyed, medium sized name.

Alondra. A-lon-der-ah. 

To be honest, my name isn’t really spoken a lot. I don’t allow people to call me by my first name, and my parents choose not to call me by my first name. Most people know me by my middle name, “Julissa”, or “Julie”, and my parents call me a shortened version of my first name (which is too embarrassing to actually put into words). I do not allow my name to be spoken out loud because it brings on too much discomfort and agitation when others cannot pronounce it correctly, or when they know that I prefer to be called by something else but choose to go against my preferences. They do not know how much I do not like my name and how much I wish I knew what my name really means, what it’s supposed to mean and say and act like. Julie or Julissa has a personality and a character, but Alondra does not. Alondra is quiet. Alondra is unknown. Alondra is waiting to be given a purpose. Alondra is a bird, but also a famous TV character from the nineties, but also the defender of mankind.
The funny thing is that my name wasn’t supposed to be mine. I was originally going to be named “Milagros”, or “Miracles”, in english. Instead of the awkward mess that is “Alondra”, I would have gotten the graceful and sophisticated name that is “Milagros”.

But then that gets me thinking - maybe it was a miracle I wasn’t named Milagros.

Imagine, me, an awkward seventeen year old who still dedicates her time to cartoons and video games, who doesn’t know how to drive, who wants to own thirty dogs and twenty cats, who still collects stuffed animals, who still uses coloring books, who stays up to marathon all of Sailor Moon, who is still scared of the dark, who still dresses like a twelve year old boy, being named something as decorative as “Milagros”.

It’s when I remember that possibility that I thank spanish novellas for existing.

The awkwardness of saying my name can be agonizing and irritating, but once it’s out in the air and people have had time to process that monstrosity of a name, they smile. They say, “That’s a cool name!”, or, “That’s a beautiful name, who thought of that?”. Beautiful. Cool. Words I would never think to associate my name with, ever. I don’t think my name is beautiful or cool or sexy, even, as so many name websites suggest - I just think it’s something out of the ordinary. Something possibly great, waiting to gain that spark that will set off a billion fireworks spelling out my name: Alondra.  It’s a baby name now, but soon enough, it will grow. It will flourish and thrive, bringing out amazing things to give to the world and change it in an unimaginable way. Once it’s grown and known, others will take it. They’ll take the name Alondra and turn it into something even more beautiful and glamorous, a brilliant new meaning to a simple name that was given out of carelessness.

So, one more time: Alondra. A baby name now, but soon enough, a revolution.

Alondra.