What`s in a name?

A long time ago, when I was a cute, cherubic child, I had a long name to remember. There was my first name, middle name, second last name and finally my last name to remember and to tell everyone who asked me who I was. But, life being what it is, another name that compressed everything became my unofficial moniker. Yes, Sonny, as I am still known today. It’s funny though, that only the Elders seemed to know my real name and would call me that throughout their lives.

After many years, I had to use my official name to open a bank account and to register for school, driver’s license and other bureaucratic functions. After awhile, Indian Affairs decided that my name would include only my original name, which was Snowboy, just to comply with their strict interpretations of who could qualify as an Indian.

For many years, I was the only one in my family who had that name, simply due to the fact that I was born before my parents married. Incidentally, they married when I was two years old. I never really thought about that until years later as an adult when I wondered, “Hey, what am I doing in my parents’ wedding pictures?”

Fortunately for me, in my tender young years as a child, no one really pressured me into knowing that I was bastardized for being alive. I went on my merry way happily content with my nickname. After several decades, I assumed that my nickname was my official name, just because that’s what everyone called me.

In fact, in my adult years, I met many people who I still know only by their nicknames. I later learned that their nicknames were never mentioned directly to them. I made a few mistakes by calling them by their nicknames, raising their ire a notch or two, until I asked them what their real name was. I was completely surprised to learn that they had quite ordinary names. Their applied names were much more colourful and slightly skewed in terms of the actual meaning. I guess, that nearly everyone had a nickname said only behind their back.

My own multitude of names became further confused when the Cree Naskapi Act came around and renamed everyone in my family to match the Snowboy name in order to qualify as a member of the Cree tribe of northern Quebec. This not only applied to my immediate family, but to my uncles and their children too. My aunts, who were married, kept their married name and didn’t change at all. It all went back to the early days when my grandfather, at the time of census counting of Indians, was asked if he would keep his mother’s name or his father’s name. He proudly proclaimed his paternal heritage and kept the Herodier name.

Then to further confuse things, as I went through a legal marital struggle and the lawyer was trying to get my birth certificate for the courts, and it took two years before she could find my real name, which was Herodier. So, for me, I had another name to add to my already long list, which got pretty close to the Facebook record for longest name.

This not only made my own identity harder to keep track of, but today, it has be shortened again by Indian Affairs to just two names. This also affected other people, who often thought of me as two separate individuals, which is another story entirely. For a while, I had two Social Insurance Numbers and two health cards, each bearing different names. But for all of you readers out there, you can call me Sonny. It’s so much more easier for the mind to remember and for the tongue to pronounce.