Beloved of the rose tower

Beloved of the rose tower

A word or set of words by which a person, animal, place, or thing is known, addressed, or referred to; that is the dictionary definition for a name.  I am blessed with a very long name, Mary Antonette Dela Rosa Torres. In my country, it is very common for people to have two given first names, in my case it’s Mary Antonette. It is said that we adopted this type of naming system from the Spaniards. My middle name is Dela Rosa, which comes from my mother’s maiden name. Also, my last name Torres which I’ve obtained from my father. When I arrived here in the United States, any time I was addressed or whenever I register my name, they always confused Antonette as a part of my middle name. I’ve been given a chance to change my name when I changed my citizenship, but I didn’t do so, because even though my name has been a source of conflict, I know that my parents given some thought and their time in choosing this name for me, moreover because my name connects me to my other sisters, I have two sisters named Marie Paulette and Maria Bernadette, people know us, as the tres Marias. The reason being for this was because my parents originally thought there were only going to be three of us.  However, I have a total of five siblings now. 

My name was given to me by my father, it was patterned with my elder sister’s name Marie Paulette. Mary is the English version of the name Maria; Philippines was colonized by Spaniards for three hundred years, and then by Americans for 48 years. So some of the Filipinos convert their name and made it Americanized. That’s why Mary was a common given first name after Spanish era. Some sources says that Mary means bitter, beautiful one or beloved. Which one I am? I don’t know it depends on what hormone is seething in my body.  

Antonette means “worthy of praise.” It is feminine of Anthony. I always get compliments with my name, but when I was in grade school, I disliked my name, because it was too long for me to write. Occasionally, people will say that my name sounds very feminine and then they will tease me, do you know Marie Antoinette? Of course after having asked about this several times, I already know whose Marie Antoinette, it was the beheaded Queen of France. I surely don’t want to be beheaded. I then adopted Toni or Tonette as my nicknames.

“Of the rose.” That’s what Dela Rosa means. Having been said in my first paragraph, my country was colonized by Spaniards for three hundred years, my blood as a Filipino is probably three-fourth, I come from a heritage of Chinese, Spanish and Filipino descent. There’s too many colonizers that inhabited Philippines that most people from Philippines does not look Filipino anymore. Native Filipinos are called Aetas, they have features such as dark to dark brown skin, kinky to afro-like textured skin and lighter hair color. Torres means “tower.” The definition of my family name then means, “Of the rose tower.” According to my ancestors, Spanish government made it mandatory to change family names to a Spanish translation, so that it will be easier to collect taxes from people. Interestingly enough, colonization did a big influence with the name that I have right now, but at the end of the day I believed names are just labels, no one can define a person just by the name, people are made individually unique from each other, but it was fun to know where your name originated from just by looking up names. So, what does your name means?

Natives of Philippines "Aetas"