My Name

 Aaliyah- First Name

Jhaneil- Middle Name

Dillion- Last Name

To start off, my first name Aaliyah turned up some very interesting finds. They were namely web pages about the deceased singer Aaliyah, who was known for songs like One in a Million and Rock the Boat. In everyday life, that is the first connotation my name derives. I was also able to find that in the top 1000 names since 1880, the name Aaliyah ranked number 146 overall. Also, Aaliyah is actually an Arabic/ Hebrew word that generally means high, exalted or ascending one in both languages. In Arabic it is the feminine version of the name Ali and in Hebrew it goes back to the journey to the Promised Land. Well, all of this is fine by me. I mean being connected to a famous artist and being considered exalted is quite the compliment!  

My middle name, well it’s just that. It serves no other purpose than to separate my first name from my last. I would love to have an interesting story behind the name Jhaneil, but I am confident that my parents concocted the name out of “Thin Air”. But on a more positive note, while this name has been the bane of my existence for as long as I can remember, I have found that I am not alone. When searching the name Jhaneil, multiple twitter and facebook accounts popped up, proclaiming that I should “Friend” this person, or make sure to “Follow” that person. Although this name did not turn up any significant connections or shocking revelations, what I found attested to the prevalence of the internet in American culture. Because even though I dis not know any of my fellow Jhaneils, their whole lives were a click away. Whether that's a positive or negative thing is a story for another post.

                              

On the other hand, my last name was a bit more complicated than my other two. That’s because surprise surprise, my last name has no lineage. My father’s family name is Hemmings; I have no idea where the name Dillion came from. The first thing the computer produced when I typed in the word Hemmings was Deon Hemmings, the first Jamaican woman to ever win a gold medal in the Olympics ( 400 meter hurdles in 1996) and Lloyd Hemmings , who was in a band called the Awah band. I doubted any of these people had anything significant connection to me other than the same last name, so I backtracked and looked up the country of origin. I mean, where exactly did the word Hemmings come from? After a little digging I found that Hemmings was a Scottish family name, one specific family descending from Vikings. There was also a Brittish Captain named Samuel Hemmings who came to Jamaica and opened the first slave village in the 1670’s. Could it be a coincidence that my real family name is Scottish and there was a slave village owner by the same last name living in Jamaica? There are so many possibilities. I believe that until an official genealogy search can be done, the history of Hemmings will be shrouded in mystery. For now, that’s okay. As long as I know who I am, does a last name really matter? I think not. Whether a Dillion or a Hemmings, I am me.  Shakespeare had it right when he said “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”.  People define the name, not the other way around.