The Name Game

                                                            

                                                 The Name Game

             

Cassandra Mahea Kanaar, that is the name my parents decided to title me with. Their curly haired, wild-eyed child dancing around and playing in the dirt was also known as their ‘GirlCat’ or ‘MouseMuffin’, nicknames they had for me in my early years. However, as time passed my name went through its twists and turns, dealing with my indecisiveness.

            I was born in Los Angeles, and in the 6 years I lived there my family and friends would all call me Cassie for short. My parents named me after my godmother, Auntie Cassie, because she was a big part of my parent’s life at the time. Which is funny, because now we no longer are in touch with Auntie Cassie, but I have her name; she apparently lives somewhere on Oahu, but we aren’t that close. My parents also had this evil plan to make my brothers name match mine, because for some reason they thought it’d be cute if we had the same initials, CMK. So there we were as children, fighting over lunch pales, and school supplies, because they all had CMK written on it; brilliant, applause for mom and dad.  

            So I took the liberty and changed my name from Cassie, to Kassy. I think that looks a lot better anyway if you ask me, and how cool is that for initials KMK, or KK. Cassandra to Kassy, it works. Before that, my parents both decided to move to Hawaii. So in my head, I thought I can’t go to Hawaii with a name like Cassie. So I switched to my middle name Mahea, which has Polynesian background. My parents were Polynesian dancers their whole lives, and were part of a traveling dance troupe; thus explaining my middle name.  Mahea means ‘endless blue sky”, it’s a Tahitian name that my parent both thought fit. My brothers middle name is also Tahitian, and of course starts with a M too, Makoa.

            Once I got comfortable in Hawaii, made some friends and enjoyed the new lifestyle, I got bored with my name again. I treated my name like a game of musical chairs in my childhood, or a game of hot potato, I couldn’t keep it long enough to get through a grade level it seemed.  So back to Cassie it was, then to Kassy eventually.

            Being a little girl, names are a huge deal; I don’t think it’s quite the same for boys. I remember every game of princess played, a good Barbie doll session, or even my favorite game as a child ‘teenager’, all these games started out with one thing “What’s your name going to be?”. That was a huge deal, my friends and I would even fight over names sometimes, “no that’s my name, I called it first!”.  For some reason I always used the name Courtney, I really liked that name, but thankfully only used that one for make believe.

            When I hit the 7^th grade, I went to a new school,  it was my first public school experience and it was terrifying. In that year I went by my full name, Cassandra, because it was my legal name and I thought I’d confuse everyone if I went by anything else. So through that whole year, I was Cassandra to everyone.  It was very annoying to all my friends; they could never keep up with my name changing and me. Some friends knew me as Mahea, some Kassy, and some Cassandra, and were often very confused when they all got together.

            However when I grew u a bit more, I generally began to stick with Kassy. I like writing it, and when I use my full name I spell it with a K, Kassandra. It feels weird when I have to use my legal full name, like when I turn in papers, or sign a contract. Or when I have a job, like when I worked at Coffee Bean we had to have our full, legal, first name written on it.  At least one thing is for sure, my last name, Kanaar; that will stay the same for now. However even that will eventually change if I get married. I believe Kanaar is Dutch, but its silly because it is very similar to the word ‘Duck’ in French.  

            So there you go, Kassandra Mahea Kanaar is my name, its very mixed in ethnicity, Greek, Polynesian, and Dutch. It’s all over the place, just like me, but I don’t plan on changing it anytime soon. It means a lot to me, its grown with me and is who I am. I am Kassy.