Colombian Names

If you know our family personally, you know that we have chosen to keep the given names of all three of our adoptive children and have only added middle names when there was not one. While 2 of the three are not the easiest names to pronounce and we are constantly correcting people, and people either assume our oldest son's name is a last name or drop the "s" at the end, I can't imagine calling them by any other name. E1's school is just as diverse name-wise. The first time we toured the building, I remember thinking to myself, goodness! they will fit right in here with so many cool and unique names above the coat hooks. So you can imagine my excitement when I saw a post from a Colombian Culture blog we read about Uncommon Colombian Names. The Registrduría in Colombia says that there are 1,691,862 Colombians with completely unique names -- no one else in the country shares their name, and possibly, no one else in the world. Based on the article, naming a child with a completly unique name is a more common practice among folks with lower incomes, while middle and upper classes have gone back to using really Spanish sounding names which would have been considered old school back in the 1980's. Here are some of the most exotic names:

Yicelub, Saub, Irlandesa, Saude, Jhewer, Jheyaa, Cometa Haley, Alka Seltzer, Mickey Mouse Jusayú, Gallina Ipuana, Cine, Helicóptero, María Perra, Ministro y Chorizo Epinayú.

So, we might just end up with a daughter whose name is totally unique to anyone in the world, and knowing me, I will probably take that as sign from up above.....so long as it isn't Alka Seltzer!