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Echoes of beliefs
Echoes of beliefs
I carry my grandparents, ethnicity, religion, and beauty all within my name. My name is exceeding long. Isabella Angelina Aurora Paparella. I love its rhythmic quality and the strong demeanor it exudes. However, I have not always had this love for my name.
“Isabella” is an Italian and Hispanic name that directly correlates to my ethnicity (Isabella Name Meaning). My mother loved my name because Isabella means “devoted to god” and Bella means “beautiful” in Italian (Isabella - Baby Girl Name Meaning,). My parents are devoted Catholics and named all four of her children after biblical figures, Elijah, Isaiah, Joseph, and Isabella. While Isabella is not in the Bible, it is the Hispanic version of Elizabeth, which is (Campbell). Because most women's names in the bible did not have the most graceful meanings, my parents spent months delicately picking this for me. My parents also named me after my grandmothers on both sides of the family for my middle names. It was very apparent the care and thought they had put into my name.
When I was growing up I felt like these meanings associated with my name were far from the truth. I was questioning my religion and did not feel beautiful whatsoever. This made me resent my name and wished for a different one from a young age. I even went to the lengths of researching how much money it would cost for me to change it legally, and $150 was a hefty price I could not afford. I was only seven, but I felt disconnected from the meaning of my name. From a very young age, I was a skeptic of Catholicism and did not agree with many of the stories my parents referred to from the bible. I didn't understand how questioning what happened to me or why things happened would leave me reprimanded by my parents telling me, “The last time someone questioned God, he was eaten by lions”. The more I strayed away from Catholicism, the more I felt I did not deserve my name. Throughout most of my life, I would go by Bella, however, there was a turning point in my senior year of high school when I embraced Isabella.
During the quarantine period at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was fighting with my religious trauma. I wholeheartedly believed I was living through the rapture. The swarms of locusts in Africa, the wildfires, the widespread sickness, this was all foreseen in the bible. I needed answers, so I met with my priest to help me grasp my relationship and questions about Catholicism. Through trial and error, and months of existentialism, I have a relationship with a greater power I know that I will never truly understand, yet I still find peace. With this newfound trust in the universe, I didn't feel the guilt that was once pulling on me every day because of my name. I allowed myself to embrace my name and my relationship with a higher power as my own, and my beauty was only represented by what I believed to be true. As I grew more and more content with my name, this began to reflect in my life. From this point on I would refer to myself as my full given name Isabella. My parents spent months perfectly crafting, and I now feel so much pride within my name.
Works Cited
“Isabella Name Meaning & Isabella Family History at Ancestry.com®.” Www.ancestry.com, www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=isabella. Accessed 20 Sept. 2023.
“Isabella - Baby Girl Name Meaning, Origin, and Popularity.” BabyCenter, www.babycenter.com/baby-names/details/isabella-4891.
Campbell, Mike. “Meaning, Origin and History of the Name Isabella.” Behind the Name, www.behindthename.com/name/isabella.
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