CASTAÑEDA Latinos just love their nicknames

for those who had trouble saying Ignacio. And he and his friend who were both named Ignacio often referred to each other as Tocayo, a term of endearment used to address someone with your same name.

It turns out that he was not the only one in his family with name issues. My dad’s older brother, my tío Catarino, was also sent to Illinois to live with relatives when he was very young. By the time my uncle was in the seventh grade, his first and his last name had been changed offically on school records. No one really knows how it happened or why his guardians who knew his real name didn’t intervene. He went from Catarino Castañeda to Joe Castenando. At 18, he enlisted in the Air Force, and the error was never corrected. He married and had three children and lived his entire life with that name, then died in 1965.

For reasons unknown, his family was estranged from ours, so his children never knew their real last name or that they were Chicanos until my primo, Joe Jr., my tío’s eldest son, decided to do a search. He and his sisters discovered they had over 200 cousins, descendants of the Castañeda family, and an 86year-old grandmother, waiting to meet them.

I stay in touch with my primo Joe Jr. and I asked him if he had ever thought about changing his name back to Castañeda.

“I guess I never thought about it,” he told me.

Is Castenando easier to say than Castañeda? I suppose. I recall that horrible feeling in elementary school when the teacher was taking attendance, and got to the Cs. I’d raise my hand and shout out, “Here!” before she got a chance to finish butchering my name.

I have since learned to really appreciate my own name. Even though I was a little envious when I found out that my sisters were named after movie stars — one was named after Annette Funicello, the other after Sandra Dee — my first name can be pronounced in English and Spanish. According to my mom, my father wanted to name me Beatriz, after my grandma, but my mom said “No.” And they agreed none of us would have middle names either, although many Latinos I know do.

Nicknames are yet another chapter to this subject. Latinos love nicknames. Luis becomes Wicho, Roberto becomes Beto, Francisco becomes Pancho, Guadalupe becomes Lupe. And then there’s the terms of endearment. Many Latino families have a gordo/a, flaco/a, guerro/a and Junior, like it or not.

To me, embracing a name is like embracing body image. Here in our region, there are plenty of Spanish speakers who pronounce names correctly, and for those who have trouble, it’s OK. I will always give you credit for trying.