My name
There are different opinions
on the origins of my name. Some say it’s Hebrew, others that it’s of Spanish
origin, but the meaning is always the same. Gabriela is the feminine form of
Gabriel, which means God’s able-bodied one, or messenger of God.
My parents never said that
they chose my name for its meaning though. My mother told me that she always
liked it, and that my father thought about it and after a while he loved it
because it reminded him of a Brazilian romance novel called Gabriela, Clove and
Cinnamon. I guess I was always destined to be a hopeless romantic and loving
literature.
Every year on my birthday, my
father tells me that they wanted a girl so bad that from the very first
pregnancy they named it Gabriela, but alas came my older brother Diego. When
the second one came round, they thought this was me for sure, and along came my
brother Federico. So when the third one came, they wanted to change the name
because it’d been six years of waiting. I could’ve been Mariana which means
bitter, or Veronica which means honesty. Days before I was born, they looked at
each other and said “No, it’s always been our Gabriela, it’s been her identity
for years and we can’t change it now”. They’ve always said that any other name
would’ve just sounded like someone else.
When you say my name correctly
in Spanish, it sounds angry and hard, which is why I’ve always preferred my
nicknames. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t ever change my name. I t is who I am and I
can’t imagine calling myself or hearing someone call me by any other. My last
name though… Now that’s another story altogether.
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