Common Things On Names

SEARCHING FOR OUR EUROPEAN ROOTS (CYPRUS / LITHUANIA/ NORTHERN IRELAND / PORTUGAL / BASQUE COUNTRY ) BY EKIALDEA BHI

 It´s amazing to see we seem to be so different in our cultures... but when we come closer to each other even our own names are revealing...We share more than we had thought.  Most of our names are closely related to our cultural background. Traditional national names are by far the most popular in all our countries. Our personal names show our common identity.  Our names can represent our culture but also the fact we live in a big world. Foreign names are increasingly being used in all our countries as a modern

fashion. We are all open to the rest of the world.(Mass media popular names)  Religion plays an important role in names although its importance varies in our different countries. Many names taken from saints are similar even considering the differences between the Catholic Church (Portugal, Northern Ireland, Basque Country) and the Orthodox Church (Cyprus). It was surprising for us to know how important Bible names or Saints´names are in Lithuania since we thought their past years with so much influence from the URSS had somehow led religion far from everyday´s life. Nowadays their traditional religious background has been recovered. We did a bit of research into their historical development and this was interesting and new for us. The Irish Catholic/Protestant distinction for names was known for us and it strongly underlines the importante of cultural and historical events in our most private life

starting with our own name. This was a big issue for group discusion.  Family customs about names are also very relevant. Fathers´and mothers´names are taken into account for newborn babies.  We enjoyed etymology a lot. Many of our names have a meaning (geographical, personal qualities...). Sometimes common words become names in all languages. We have more names in common with Portugal and Cyprus (Latin and Greek roots) whereas the Irish Gaelic and the Lithuanian names sound more different to us.  We also have to mention how close Portuguese names are from Spanish names (not Basque, which is an “exotic” language in Europe). Portugal and Spain, sharing the same peninsula, Iberia, have so many things in common. Our languages, both Latin, and our religious and cultural background.... Surprisingly, the system for naming people is slightly different.

 It´s been a nice starting point to get to know each other a bit better. Just a bit of research into our names goes deep into our own identities and draws all of us together. We also had a look at the list of names of all students taking part in the project. Following the clues in our works about names we could trace the origins of some names. If we mixed up all our names, it would be easy to know the country of many of them but some others could be of any of our countries (Maria can be the best example).  Last but not least, our shool name is also part of our personal history, isn´t it?. Many schools in Spain and the Basque Country have names of important people for society (politicians, writers...). This is not the case in our school. “Ekialdea” means “east” in Basque and it just shows our geographical location in VitoriaGasteiz.