One day, I was working out with a friend of mine. We had been there for quite some time, when out of nowhere, a gym employee came up to me.
“Excuse me,” she said. She was holding my Bahraini national I.D. card and looked puzzled. “Is this really your name?” she asked, a little inflection of amused surprise in her voice.
“Yes..?” I said, wiping the torrential sweat off my forehead.
“No way!” she dropped her jaw in disbelief. “Can you read it out to me? How do you say it?”
Oh right. The name. I should have known that’s what this was about. You see, my name has become quite the conversation starter.
It’s always with a little glee that people who know me ask me to bring out my I.D. in gatherings. “Take a look at Mohamed’s name,” they say to an unsuspecting new friend.
It’s become quite funny actually. Sometimes when a conversation lulls and I don’t know the person too well, I tend to whip out my card.
“Hey, have I ever shown you my full name?”
Yup, in Canada I use my name as an ice-breaker.
To help you better understand, let me introduce my name to you. You might want to take a deep breath if you’re going to read this out loud. Here we go: Mohamed Ahmed Abdelghaffar Ateya Ebrahim Algarf.
Think it’s a little long? Allow me to explain. This was the result of a family feud. My mother wanted to name me one name, my father another and each of my three sisters had a suggestion. Eventually, everyone was exasperated and they decided to name me all of them.
Gotcha!
I explain this quite often so I might as well have some fun. But here’s the real answer: Mohamed is my first name and Algarf is my surname. The whole name is my paternal lineage. Ahmed is my father, Abdelghaffar is my grandfather, etc. Lineage is very important in Arab culture because family is highly valued. It’s the way things are there, I guess we all have longer names. In fact, I had always assumed that this was the standard everywhere. In Vancouver, people’s names came as a shock to me. When I’m asked for my full name I don’t start reciting this roster—I say Mohamed Algarf. So I pretty much assumed that it was the same thing here and that people introduced themselves with their abbreviated name.
My first time seeing a Canadian passport with just three names was quite the shock, but I think some Canadians remain much more startled by my name. My favorite question I get about it is, “How do kids even memorize their names?”
My answer is: one name at a time, my friend, one name at a time.
What about you? Have you ever gotten confused reactions to your name? Have you ever been in a situation where you had to explain it?