A Girl Named Fred

When my older sister was born, my parents apparently had a difficult time naming her. Sources report she went nameless for a month. Mom and dad simply called her Baby Girl, but lifelong family friends Matthew and Allison Hile knew she deserved more; she was entitled to a name: Fred. Thirty years later, Emily is still Fred to the Hiles.

Last week, my host aunt gave birth to a son. In Morocco, babies are not named for the first week. Seven days later, on Friday night, I found myself surrounded by my immediate and extended host family. Unbeknownst to me, naming was a full family affair. My uncle brought forth pen and paper and began to solicit names from the crowd: Said, Ayoub, Khalid. My turn came up: Mourad. Each name was carefully written down. With over 20 family members in attendance, this baby had a lot of options. I sat in confusion for a couple minutes, wondering what would come next, but then I saw my little brother return to the room, clutching a pair of scissors. My uncle cut out each name, which my young cousins quickly folded up into tiny pieces. The papers made a pile on the table. The room got quiet. My uncle reached for one paper, one name, the name. My sister next to me yelped with excitement and clapped her hands in triumph, exclaiming, That’s my name. And thus, Baby Boy became Mohammed Amine.

Everyone is eager to add their name of choice to the list.

I sat in shock. Naming by lottery? This couldn’t be normal. I later asked my friend Hassan about this tradition, and he assured me it was routine. There are other baby-naming traditions, though, according to Hassan. Sometimes the parents will simply choose, sometimes whoever brings the first gift gets to name the baby. Or if it’s a boy, a cousin will decide, but if it’s a girl, an aunt can pick a name. Hassan claimed the lottery was the best course of action: There is no argument and everyone gets an equal chance, so no one can be unhappy with the name. (I wonder how my parents would have felt naming Baby Girl by lottery—there must have been a number of contenders to sow such discord. And maybe then Emily actually would have been Fred.)

The next day was the subue (se-bu-ay)—a party to celebrate Mohammed Amine. In the morning, a sheep was slaughtered, and the women in my family spent the day preparing the meat. Neighbors gathered at my aunt’s house that night for tea and dinner. I arrived at 9 p.m. after finishing classes at the Dar Chabab to find women lounging on the floor in two different rooms; the men sat separately in another salon. I sat down in one room, as the women around me carried on their conversation. I attempted to chat with the woman next to me, but we soon lapsed into silence. Small talk in a foreign language is not an easy feat. While these celebrations offer an opportunity for the women in my town to socialize, I generally find them uncomfortable. I’m not the person at the party with endless stories and jokes; I appreciate the opportunity to talk with different people at social functions, the ability to float on when the dialogue becomes stale or truly engage if it takes off. But unlike an American dinner party, where guests ordinarily have the opportunity to mingle prior to the meal, once seated in your room here, you wait for dinner. The conversation eventually fades—usually about the time people start to wonder why the tea hasn’t been served—and as the sole American present, most people will just stare at me.

Luckily, this was my family’s event, so I excused myself and escaped to the kitchen and begged my aunt to assign me a task. For the rest of the night, I served tea and distributed cookies, fetched water as needed, and brought out the courses—a sweet pasta dish served with raisins, cinnamon, peanuts, and powdered sugar; mutton with prunes and hard boiled eggs; and fresh fruit. The men ate first; I finally served dinner to the women around 11 p.m. There were not enough dishes to feed everyone at once, so as platters were cleared, they were immediately washed for further use. When the party started to break up around midnight, I sat down to eat a small plate of sugary pasta before returning home.

On a late night like this I would typically sleep at my host family’s house, but I had class the next morning and was then immediately departing to visit Melanie, another volunteer. We were having our own little party to celebrate a project she had just finished and our friend Sasa’s birthday. I was eager to converse in my first language and tell everyone how we chose Mohammed Amine’s name. When I relayed the story to other volunteers, though, I was met with another surprise.

A fellow volunteer had discovered that in Morocco, there is a set list of pre-approved names for newborns. An extensive Google search revealed that according to the Civil Registry Article 21 Law 37-99, names must be of “Moroccan character and must be neither a name of a family nor a name composed of more than two first names, nor the name of a city, village or tribe, and must not constitute an affront to good morals or the public order.” “Moroccan character” seems to only include Islamic names. An interesting tidbit unearthed online was that Amazigh (Berber) names are not approved. Reports from last summer still call for an end to this form of discrimination.

Try as I might, I could not find the list published anywhere, but I was willing to believe it existed. The news certainly cleared up why everyone seems to have the same name. This isn’t much of an exaggeration: during a recent English class, only three of my usual students showed; they were all named Mustapha.

While it seems ridiculous to me that such strictures are in place to dictate names, Morocco is not alone in this censure. My friend Susan informed me that in France, there is a list of names you can’t give your baby. To my knowledge, there are no such restrictions in the U.S. But I guess that’s why you end up with little girls named Fred.

For my cousin, Kennedy Lakin Hill, the newest baby girl in the family.