by NAIRA KUZI
Names hold culture and history. They defend or surrender their bearer to the prejudices of the world. So what does it mean when your name doesn’t mean anything?
Nigerian Currency bills of different denominations. IMAGE/Nigerian Currency Naira
Right now, one Naira is equal to approximately .0064 dollars. That could easily change.
I’m not from Nigeria, but I tell my students that at least there, I’m worth something. I tell them this when they haven’t done the assigned reading and the closest bar is hours away.
Years ago, in my seventh grade World History class, I did a project on the country. Once I discovered that Naira was the name of its currency, I used every opportunity in the essay to make little jokes about it. I got an A.
When I asked my mother just what I had to do with Nigeria, she laughed, and said: “Is that what they’re teaching you in school? That you’re all Africans?” She told me that Naira is the female variation of Nairi, the name for the ancient kingdom of Armenia. But she admitted that I wasn’t actually named after it. My mother is not so much a nationalist as she is a deeply nostalgic woman. She misses her hometown of Kirovakan, now Vanadzor. She misses who she was there: fearless. When she was only eighteen, she turned a choking toddler upside down and shook him by the ankles until a marble popped out.
My mother has an aristocrat’s nose, upturned and small, the most resilient hands. Her name is Tagui. In our language, this means Queen. She is the classiest woman I know. She brushes her hair sitting down.
In fact, no one in my family remembers exactly where my name comes from, or who gave it to me or why. There’s talk of a cousin, eleven, twelve at the time, who offered the name of a girl he liked in school. Then there’s my father, who jokes that it’s the name of one of his old girlfriends. When he says this, and he says this often, nudging my mother with his shoulder, she laughs, short and sharp.
Offered no memorable reason for my name, I turned to Google. One site promised that Naira meant glittering or shining, but declared that its origins were Australian. Australians speak English, a funny English, but I imagine not strange enough to incorporate Naira in their daily vocabulary. I looked elsewhere. Another site said Naira meant “Big Eyes,” from the Aymara. The Aymara were an ethnic group from the Andes, who became the subjects of the Incas, and later the Spanish. Apparently around three million survive today and claim parts of Bolivia, Chile, and Peru as their home. My eyes are definitely huge.
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