My mother gave birth to my brother on St Elijah's Day and decided to name him Iliya. Dad, however, was very keen for my big brother to be named Petar after his father, because by tradition the first grandchild in the family had to carry the name of the paternal grandfather. And so it was.
Three years later Mum was dreaming of having a girl named Maria-Antoaneta. As you'll see below, that name would not have been allowed – this time by the state. Instead I turned up, an offspring of the male sex. Mum had a back-up option too – Anton. Dad didn't object, but the day was the Dormition of the Mother of God, and my godmother, Dr Telbizova, was adamant: the name will be Bogomil! Sometimes Mum would sigh:
“If only I'd got to name at least one of my children myself!”
In 1979 my wife gave birth to our first child. The next day she told me, from a third-floor window of the Second City Hospital, that they wouldn't let her register the baby under the name we'd chosen – Nia. It wasn't on the list of Bulgarian names and the clerk was adamant. Visiting a woman who'd just given birth was unthinkable back then. She asked me what to do – without a name they couldn't be discharged. Some people today may find it hard to believe, but it's a fact. I told her not to give in and that our daughter's name had to be Nia! Full stop!
A few months earlier, one evening, I'd suggested we pick a name for our future child. There were no ultrasound scans back then and the baby's sex was unknown. My wife said she'd had the names ready for ages – Nia or Filip. The moment I heard Nia, I'd jumped up and done a happy dance. I told her I couldn't wait for her to have a girl. At the time the name was known only to those who'd read Dimitar Talev's trilogy. For both of us it was a symbol of tenderness and beauty. I liked the name Filip too.
After the news about the problem with our daughter's name, I went home angry, but I started to waver. It was easy for me to be firm, but back then you didn't mess with the state, and it would have been no surprise if they really didn't discharge them.
Luckily, a former fellow student and his wife soon came round to congratulate me on the baby girl. I poured them some vodka. They could see I was sour. I told them why and added that I'd had a classmate, born here, called Ilich /after Lenin/, after which I swore and took a big gulp, saying: “And that name's Bulgarian, is it?”
My friend Andro had fixed me with a reproachful look:
“So do the two of you really insist on the child being called Nia?”
“Yes, but they won't discharge them without a name for the baby…”
“Looks like you're letting some dimwit pull the wool over your eyes! Insist! Without the parents' signature that lot can't do a thing!”
“Thank you, Andro! And now, excuse me, I'm off to the hospital!”
I dashed to the hospital and, for two leva, had a nurse pass a note to my wife: Baby's name: NIA!!! DON'T GIVE IN!
In the morning I waited for my wife to appear at the window. I asked her what was happening with the name, and she shrugged. The next day the situation was the same. Should we insist or resign ourselves? In the end I decided I'd never forgive myself if I let our child begin her life with a compromise, and that tomorrow, after our “meeting”, I'd go to the hospital director and have it out with him. All night long I rehearsed my plea. The part I liked best was about the right of the mother, who had carried the fruit of her womb, to choose its name, even if it was some odd whim of hers.
The next day it turned out that my wife had somehow managed without my fury, and she called down cheerfully from the window for me to come tomorrow and pick them up in the car.
It was only proper to stand everyone a round at work for the baby. When my colleagues asked what my daughter was going to be called, I announced the name with particular pride: Nia!
“What are your mum's and your mother-in-law's names?” I answered: “Violeta and Nenka.”
“Ah, I see – after the mother-in-law!” Ha-ha.
Everything went black before my eyes. I felt like overturning the table and storming out. A few days later I told them about Talev, “The Iron Candlestick” and its heroine Nia. They looked at me silently, with a look that meant:
“Yeah, right, the first-letter trick wasn't your invention.”
Once again I was convinced of how hard it is to fight people's prejudices.
In 1985 we had a son too. We'd thought up a name – Hristo – after Hristo Prodanov, the Bulgarian mountaineer who had recently died on the way down from Mount Everest. This time it was my father who took offence that his grandson wouldn't carry his name, and my mother added that it wasn't good for a child to be named after someone who had died. I made excuses that I hadn't known the name rule applied to the second child too. But to keep the peace, I made my wife agree to name our son Bogdan, after my father. The state hadn't managed to change the name of the first one, but “my relatives” named the second! To this day I regret the faint-heartedness I showed then and the compromise I made.
My grandmother used to call G. Dimitrov Boulevard “Maria Luiza”, the neighbourhood grocer's “Tevekeliev's”, the nearby photo studio “Papakochev's”, and Zhdanov Street “Solunska”. We grandchildren laughed at her, but many years later the names she used went back to their old places.
I also remember how, when I turned 16, the time came for me to get my identity papers. According to the practice of the day, my surname was supposed to be my grandfather's, not the family surname we'd had since time immemorial. My grandfather was called Petar. But back then “Petrov” was the go-to name for a bureaucrat in sleeve protectors and, accordingly, for a pen-pusher in the humour newspaper “Starshel”. I asked to have the surname Dimitrov – after my great-grandfather Dimitar. There was no way they could refuse me – at the time Comrade Georgi Dimitrov was considered the leader and teacher of our people.
My mother's name before her marriage was Violeta Kostadinova Andonova, and after her marriage in 1948 – Violeta Bogdanova Petrova, after her husband Bogdan Petrov Dimitrov. After that – Violeta Kostadinova Petrova, and finally – Violeta Kostadinova Dimitrova, i.e. this time they “gave” her my father's surname, not his patronymic.
Our communist state carried out name reforms aimed at wiping out family ties and attacking above all bourgeois surnames.
Everyone grows attached to their name and it becomes their second self, even if they don't particularly like it. I don't know whether it will put Mum's mind at rest, but for me SHE gave me this name and I like it. I've also noticed that when people call me Bogo, Boga, Bogi, everything's fine, but if they call me Bogomil, it means I've done something wrong. In other words, my name also serves as a clear indicator of how the people around me see me at any given moment. A sort of litmus test.
I wonder what would happen if someone wanted to change it. I'd certainly react like Vaptsarov in his poem “Faith”, in which he imagines them taking away even just a tiny bit of his faith in the future:
…..
But now, let's say,
you take away – how much? –
a single grain of wheat
from my faith,
I'd roar out then,
I'd roar out in pain,
like a panther
wounded in the heart.
What would be left of me then?
A moment after the robbery I'd be unravelled.
And more clearly still,
and more plainly still,
A moment after the robbery
I would be nothing!
