Where did my name come from?

 

Having a unique name is such a nice thing. You can feel a bit silly about it, but you cannot deny that it’s basically your parents giving you some kind of a conversation starter.

Where did your name come from?

The thing is, if you tell me that my parents named me the name that I have now because they were bored, I will not just believe you, but also say that you’re so right. Aside from that, if you ever say that my parents may not be fond of me that much, you’ll be also right about it sadly.

Something about me is that I go by a unique name. I will not be surprised if there’s only a few people less than a hundred that has a similar name as I have. And it’s not really that long, it’s just three letters (plus 4 because I have a second name lol)

With that out of the way, let me just introduce myself. Hi! I’m Iaa. If you have no idea how to read or pronounce it, don’t worry because you are not alone. Almost everyone I know finds it hard to pronounce my name by first read and I have to correct them. It’s a vice versa situation actually; I can pronounce my name to people, and they will spell it wrong. For sure I’m not Eya or Iya, but apparently, I am according to some people.

There are also some out of the blue situations where people will read my name right, and it’s a little celebration inside my head. It’s rare, and I just know that I’ll be having a great time once it happens.

I used to not like my name back then because it’s not very easy or common like the Marys and Abbys and Lilys of the world. It’s something that makes people think and I really used to think people doesn’t like me because I have a name that is so unheard of. Sometimes, I get lightly teased by my fellow elementary kids at the time with people intentionally misspelling it or the classic “Old McDonald had a farm, E I E I O”. But now at present day, I like how unique, creative, and silly it is. Nobody is teasing me anymore (we’re in college now). Also, it’s a name that kind of makes people think. And if they do, I become a bit more interesting, unforgettable and quite remarkable.

Now, where did it really come from??

Let’s start the tale with my mother. Around 1998, she’s expecting a child. In short, she’s pregnant. She was at a growing stage, so she has no choice but to leave her job and just let my father work for them, or us basically. This results to her being left alone at home all the time. So, a typical pastime for her is solitaire and eating so many bananas, and it’s better if it’s twin bananas.

The boredom led her to do a little activity; she spelled out her name and our fathers name letter by letter and made it into a little pick some letters thing, and whatever she made out of it will be the name.

Keep in mind that’s she’s on a crucial, delicate stage and her bump’s looking bigger than usual so she thought it was a boy, so she settles on a name: Ian Nyll.

Days/months later (not sure, she just tells us all these things), she was rushed in the hospital. She cannot go to a checkup all throughout the pregnancy, so they rushed her all of a sudden because of a certain health risk that came up (this actually deserve its own storytime because there’s so much story on how this was the case).

My mother never had an ultrasound before this, let alone did a check-up consultation. She just can’t, and when things took a toll on her, things hit the fan. But when she got an ultrasound, she realized that she’s not having a boy, but instead a pair of twin girls.

But let’s say, my mom doesn’t really wanna go back to her desk and do another letter randomizer picks. So, what she did is that she made a few changes to the name already set. So, Ian will lose his N to be replaced with another A, hence the name Iaa. And for the twin sister, let’s just do a little letter swap and there’s Aia. Then she just kept the Nyll and here we are.

So yeah, I think that’s it. All that long story just to say that it was indeed a very random, bored, and weird days that brought us to a name like this.