To strangers, my name has always meant “Protector of man.” To me, it’s too many words to handle so I have to shorten it up. It means protector, it means giver. I like to think my name is like a light blue. It is the number sixteen. A delicate color, a delicate type of blue. It is the birds chirping on a Sunday morning, a calm and delicate name.

I do not know where my name comes from, I believe my mother was insistent on giving me and my sisters all A names. My mother liked to pick beautiful names for her children. She would always say, “A is the best letter in the alphabet, I thought your names should resemble that.” My mother said I have a strong name. Great people of the past were given my name, and yet I can’t seem to find all the beauty in all nine letters.

My mother, braver than any other woman I’ve met, should’ve taken my name. She was the ultimate protector, not me. She wanted our names to match the people we would end up becoming. She wanted me to become a protector, of everyone. I still plan on honoring this.

Even though her story ended sooner than mine, her name still lives on. I want to be able to do the same for her, take the name she gave me and leave a legacy along with it. I wonder why she looked at me and gave me the name she did. I wonder if she stared into my blue eyes and chose a name to match that color. Alexandra. The protector, something I want to live up to.

 When I was younger I would only be referred to as my full name. To me, each syllable was music. As I started to age, I began to resent my full name, it was always a handful that no one liked to say, especially me. I am lucky enough to be able to leave my home and be Alex now. I find my full name beautiful in other languages, the way it glides off the tongue in Spanish is enough for me to always want to be referred to as Alexandra, but at the end of the day, Alex is quite enough for me.

I don’t know if I would change the name given to me. My mother gave me this name, and I know if she was around it would break her heart. I would like to give myself a different nickname, something new and fresh, I crave to feel like a new person. Alexandra as Alexa or Al or Alexis, even Lexi, but even then Alex will do.

Alexandra is hearing my name being yelled up the stairs. Alexandra is what I hear as my grandparents call my name. Alex is what I know. Alex is what my friends call me, what my family calls me. Alexandra becomes lost in the dark blue that Alex radiates. A name so delicate becomes buried and almost forgotten until needed again.