by Christa von Zychlin

I am a toddler. My mother is from Germany and she pronounces my name like no one else. Christa Luise, she says, rolling the "r" and stretching my middle name out to three syllables. Other kids hear their middle names only when they’re about to get in big trouble. In my mother’s mouth–maybe because Luise is her own mother’s name and her mother lives a wide ocean away–my stretched–out name becomes gentle and melodic. Christa
Lu–s–e, she repeats, sometimes looking straight through me, thinking of somebody else.

I am four years old. I’ve just wrapped my mind around the greatly disturbing fact that my older brother and sister call me Baby when they are speaking to each other about me. When they realize that I object, they do it all the more. "What about Baby?" they’ll say, referring to me in the third person even though I am standing right there. Years later, at my father’s funeral, although I am a young woman, language suddenly reverts to childhood and I hear it again: "Why don’t you and Baby take the car and pick up..." I don’t mind at all. It occurs to me to wonder: In heaven, will anybody call me Baby?

I am seven and in first grade. I am just leaving school for the walk home. A boy leans out the school bus window and yells Fatso. I look around but I am the only person on the path. Yes, I have the rounded shape of a healthy, apples–and–spinach and double–desserts–when–possible, little girl. But suddenly I am Fatso, a name I still remember decades later. First I feel simple astonishment. Then the seed of self–doubt, like something I have accidentally swallowed, sticks in my throat.

I am 12 and in seventh grade. Mrs. McConnell is our social studies teacher, and she has a well–deserved reputation for being mean. She never uses our actual names, but calls us Sweetkins, Honey-pie, and Darling. With a voice as smooth as cream pie, Mrs. McConnell says paradoxical things like, "Sweetkins, stick your nose back in that corner for another 10 minutes, and I’d better not hear a word out of you." Or "Honey dear, you don’t have a lick of sense in you, do you?" I slouch at my desk and think how you shouldn’t call people those kinds of names if you don’t mean it. In Mrs. McConnell’s voice, a term of endearment becomes a curse. I wonder who taught her that names of love should be thrown away?

I am 15 and have just started my first job. It’s spring. I’m walking to the grocery store where I am a check-out clerk. I’m wearing my dark pants with a white top–my uniform–and wondering whether Brian at school would ever possibly like me... whether any boy would ever like me. Then a car passes by, window rolled down. "Hey, Beautiful!" some older teenagers yell out. In another time or another place it might have been a threat or an annoyance. On this early April morning, however, it is an awakening and it is a gift. I have been named Beautiful.

I am 20. Now I know all too well that I am beautiful, with the easy confidence of a college senior. I am studying for two months at the University of Jerusalem. Blondinit, my mostly dark–haired classmates call me. I make friends with a student in another department whose name is pronounced Kah-nan. "Like the land of Canaan," he explains. Canan grins when I mistake him for a Jewish Israeli. In fact, he is a Palestinian Christian. "We are the original Christians," he explains. I am here to study the language and am utterly naďve about the politics of the Holy Land. When I go with Canan, we ride the dilapidated blue bus, not the newer Israeli bus, although they seem to travel the same routes. One day, a few weeks into our budding camaraderie, my friend disappears. Where did he go? I only know his first name, Canan, like the promised land.

Another new friend in Israel is named Isac. We soon start dating. Isac tells me the story of his mother arriving in Israel after World War II. She had been in a German concentration camp. Her entire family had been killed. The doctor in Israel told her that because of the trauma she had endured at the hands of the Nazis, she might never be able to have children. "She told me she never thought she would hear herself being called Eema (Hebrew for Mother)," Isac explains. "So when I was born she called me Isac because that means laughter. So she is my Eema, and I am her Laughter."

One day Isac brings me home to meet his mother. I am acutely aware that my entire name is a giveaway of my German heritage. How does she feel about her son bringing a non-Jewish girl to her home? Christa, she says with a welcoming smile, pronouncing it with the rolled "r," just as my own mother does. "Welcome to our home." I am overwhelmed by her hospitality.

Two years later I meet a seminarian and after a whirlwind romance, we are engaged. "What shall I call you?" I eagerly ask my future mother–in–law. She looks startled. "Well, you can call me Mom, I guess," she says. As the years pass, I sometimes wish I had the courage to ask if I could call her by her lovely given name instead. Would that make our conversation more straightforward, less loaded with the tension of my being married to her only child? Other women and I discuss the delicate matter of what to call the in–laws. First names? Mom and Dad? Or wait for kids to arrive, then call them Grams and Gramps? My friend Alice’s mother overhears our conversation and says, "Well as long as you call your mother-in-law something." We learn that one of her daughters–in–law doesn’t call her anything at all. They have a very cordial relationship, but they’ve never been clear about how to name each other. Now, so much time has passed that no one wants to bring it up.

I am a modern bride of the 1980s, and I can’t understand that there is even a question. With a name like von Zychlin, I have learned the right to keep it. How many times have I spelled it out for people (small "v," capital "Z," please)? When I was growing up, my father insisted on telling the phone company to alphabetize it the way it was in Germany, according to the "Z" rather than the "v" and they surprisingly obliged. Then our family endured the 2 a.m. phone calls saying, "Hey, did you know your name is the last one in the phone book?" (Yes, as a matter of fact we did.) I have patiently corrected the mangled pronunciations by teachers and telemarketers and the endless explanations: "No, it’s not Dutch, it’s German." I have come to terms with the fact that few legal forms have spaces enough to accommodate my long autograph. So of course, I will keep that last name–it is mine.

How surprised I am when my easy–going fiancé suddenly gets very serious on this matter. Maybe I would have had an easier time with someone named Smith. But wouldn’t you know, my husband-to-be has a history with his last name, too. When his grandparents entered the United States from Finland, the immigration officers took one look at the name and reached a quick verdict: "Nieminen?  Too long and too many vowels." Out came the correction pen and with two quick strokes, Nieminen became Nieme, pronounced Nee-Mee.

My fiancé was active in high school sports, where lots of locker room scenes played out: "What’s your name again? Knee-me? Okay!" And the rowdy adolescent boys would attempt to do exactly that. So as a young adult he decided to change his name back to the original, all four glorious syllables of it. Of course he thinks his future wife will gladly bear that same name, with its splendid confusion of m’s and n’s.

Should we hyphenate our names, Nieminen–von Zychlin? We quickly discard that idea. Finally I come up with what I am sure is the perfect solution. I will keep my name, and any daughters we have will have my name, so that I can pass on my heritage. Any future sons, however, can have his name.

A smart, modern solution, I think, even though it takes me a little longer to persuade him. As it turns out, and as I like to joke, God must be male after all, because He gave us three boys! So only the dog and I share the last name of "von Zychlin" in our home today.

I am a mother. Mom sounds, well, like my mother-in-law’s name to me. Mother is too formal. I want to go retro and be called Mama. "Mama loves you," I croon to my babies. I read them children’s books where the mothers are called Mama. When we live for a few years in other countries, the name Mama has a satisfying international flavor to it. I sign birthday cards to them "with love, Mama." So what do my children call me? It never varies; they always say Mom.

I am well into middle age. What names do I still hear? Christa Luise? My 83–year–old mother sometimes says it, but rarely now, and she is the only one. Beautiful? Maybe only from my husband of more than two decades. After all these years, one of my sons has started to call me Mama on occasion, in order to wheedle a little extra lunch money out of me or the use of my car. I knowingly give in. I am called Pastor Christa by parishioners and Mrs. Nieminen by people who don’t know me. The other night I catch myself introducing myself as Eric’s Mom at my youngest son’s school, a sure sign that I am tired.

What names will I receive in my future? When my children are married and grandchildren are born, will they call me Grandma or Omi? Will future colleagues call me Old or Wise? Will there always be someone to call me Sister or Friend?

At baptism, I was named with my full name and then given a new one besides: Child of God. What does God call me, when God speaks in my heart? God speaks my name gently and rolls out the "r." God speaks my name clearly, each syllable distinct.

And how will God name me, when I’m greeted in heaven? Maybe with the names that have served me on earth. Or could there be a new name in heaven, as well? Blessed? Beloved? Friend of God? Or maybe, like a bunch of teenage boys from a car window, God will call out a name for me that will be more strange and wonderful yet. And then that is who I will be.

The Rev. Christa von Zychlin and her husband, the Rev. Wayne Nieminen, are pastors of Our Savior’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hartland, Wis.