What's your name?

You know me as Anh, pronounced "Anna" or "Ana".  If you're friends with me on Facebook, you know my full name is Anh-Nguyet, and I have a younger sister whose name is Anh.  We always get the "You and your sister have the same name?"  I generally respond to this question with "When you're the last two of six kids, creativity has been exhausted."  That's really not true, because the real story is my dad is very creative, and very optimistic.

My siblings and I have hyphenated first names, and all have beautiful meanings:

Thuy-Lien, goes by Lien

Ngoc-Lan, goes by Lan

Minh-Trung, goes by Trung

Thanh-Tung, goes by Tung

Anh-Nguyet, me

Hong-Anh, goes by Anh

Notice anything?  Every one of them goes by the second part of their names, except me.  Of course, I would do something different, right?  WRONG!  I had nothing to do with it!  My dad originally planned to name me "Nguyet-Anh", which means moonlight.  My godmother intervened and advised him to transpose the two, because kids in Vietnam are alphabetized by their first names (probably because 40% of us have the last name of "Nguyen"), and she didn't want me to get stuck in the middle of the lineup.  My dad agreed, changed my name, and the meaning became "light of the moon" (which I think is far more exotic because who the hell cares about moonlight?) but stuck with calling me "Anh", his original plan.  

But WAIT!!!  My sister's name that causes confusion is truly "Anh".  Mine, however, has the added twist of an accent mark on the "A", which alters how it is pronounced.  If you listen carefully, you can notice the difference.  Most people can't hear it, but that's okay, because I'm not going to laugh at you for that (as friends, you know I'll laugh at you for something else). It's a very subtle difference that completely changes the meaning, such is the beauty of the nuances of the Vietnamese language.  And I truly believe it's one of the most beautiful and unique languages, unless it's spoken by a person whose voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard.

So why am I called "Anna" or "Ana"?  In kindergarten, I was introduced by my full name to dear Mrs. Riordan.  I never saw Mrs. Riordan after kindergarten, because we moved away, and quite honestly, she might have thrown in the towel after that year.  Sweet Mrs. Riordan looked at me, and said "We will call you 'Anna'."  And that is how I got my name.