I was sitting in a white-walled hospital waiting room as I swung my toddler-sized feet back and forth and held my grandma’s hand — my mom was curiously nowhere to be found. The air in the room felt strange. All my family members seemed anxious. But I, a recently-turned 2 year old, was starting to get bored and impatient. What were we waiting for? I was getting tired of sitting down.
I was about to jump up in a fit of hyperactivity when my dad walked into the room. He was wearing an odd set of blue clothes paired with a blue hat that, frankly, didn’t suit him. I gazed up at him, eyes sparkling with untainted innocence and young expectation as he reached out for my hand and asked me: ¿Quieres conocer a tu hermanita?
My dad stared at me, silently searching for a response, so I impatiently nodded, excited at the prospect of finally getting to do something fun for the first time in days. Hand in hand, my dad and I made our way into the labor room my mom was in. He swung me up in his arms as we approached the side of my mom’s hospital bed. My mom’s eyes were brimmed with tears, but her smile told me that she was okay. More than okay, really. She was elated. As she held my newborn baby sister and lightly stroked her tiny head, she looked at me and said: Graciela, conoce a Marcela.
The instant I saw my little sister, I knew I would love her forever. But even if I was pretty talkative for a 2 year old, I was struggling to find the words to express just how much I loved her and just how excited I was to meet her. Born a day after my birthday, she was the best birthday present I could’ve asked for. Instead of saying that, though, I just put my small hand on her tiny little head and shortened her name by two letters. Marce, I said.
Around two years later, Marce would start to speak words of her own. Although she didn’t speak much until she turned 4, she did come up with some keywords to identify the important things and people in her life that her little brain had managed to soak up so far. My name was a bit too long and too complicated for her to pronounce in its entirety, so she latched on to the last three letters of it and added an l at the beginning, creating her own version of my name. She would put her tiny hand on my face and say, Lela. I would smile at her and answer, Marce.
Seventeen years later, both nicknames have stuck.
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It’s sort of a universal truth that actions speak louder than words. Whether positively or negatively, actions are often cautiously calculated, designed to reflect how a person truly feels about a specific person, place or event. Thus, it should come as no surprise that four out of the five commonly cited love languages focus on actions that demonstrate appreciation, instead of words that serve a similar purpose.
As someone who places way too much importance on what online quizzes tell you about yourself, you can be sure that I’ve taken more than 1,000 quizzes trying to decipher whether words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, gift giving or acts of service is my love language. The most disheartening part is that I’ve gotten a different answer almost every time, leaving it up to me to decide which fits the way I show affection to my loved ones the most. And though the five categories are each pretty broad, they fail to cater to someone who pays attention to detail above all else.
I decided to trace things back to the first time I remember feeling such an overflowing amount of love for a person. Even if most of what I remember of the event comes from relatives’ testimonies and how I imagine it must have gone, I can safely say that the moment my little sister was born, I instantly loved her. And the first way I expressed it was by giving her a nickname.
From my sister to my friends to my extended family, everyone that I love in my life has a nickname. Some I’ve assigned to them myself; others have been assigned to them by other loved ones. Regardless of who has come up with each nickname, their tendency to keep appearing in my family and friendship circles is reflection enough of the undeniable love shared through them.
My sister has her one nickname, Marce, a shortened five-letter version of her seven-letter name. But she is also Marcelita or Marcelina, a diminutive nine-letter version of her name that my dad occasionally uses to affectionately tease her. At times, she even becomes Marcela Marvelous, a nickname our aunt gave her and has used for as long as I can remember.
My friends have at least three nicknames each. I frequently use the classic shortened version of their name, saying the first few letters of it and cutting out the latter half. But I sometimes shorten their names further, merely saying the first two letters of their name. To my surprise, they know when I’m referring to them by shortening their names, even if it’s the first time I’ve ever said it.
My grandparents have what I like to call paired nicknames. My maternal grandparents chose what they wanted my sister, my cousin and me to call them the day my older cousin was born. My grandma would crouch down next to our cribs and markedly enunciate her and my grandpa’s nicknames to make sure they stuck with us. She would point to herself and say, Mamama. She would then point to my grandpa and say, Abo. I’m not sure how scientifically effective her method was, but the nicknames sure stuck. My paternal grandparents, on the other hand, were gifted their nicknames by my cousin. Fernando and Carmiña were too long for her to say, so she resorted to saying the last four letters of their names. They thus became Ando and Miña, referred to as such by myself and all five of my cousins.
What’s most interesting about nicknames to me is their ability to stick regardless of how late in life you decide to start using them. We’re used to answering to our birth names, but, if assigned by a person we love just enough, nicknames become adjacent to those birth names, etching themselves permanently into our identities.
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It may seem like I’m overcomplicating the process of identifying my love language. At their simplest, names are merely words, and so are nicknames. The only reason they mean so much is because of the meaning we assign to them. Broadly defined, they comfortably fall under the realm of words of affirmation. To gift someone a nickname is to think about them just enough to want to make them feel special, and to want to make someone feel special is to love and appreciate them in a very particular way. But, to me, the gift of a nickname snugly fits into the intersection of actions and words. In order to fully express the love I feel for the people in my life, I’ve had to put my words to action. Acting on love has led me to come up with nicknames for my loved ones and appreciate the ones they’ve come up with for me.
Whenever I’m feeling a lack of love, I think of the nicknames I’ve been gifted throughout my life. To my sister, I’m Lela, a nickname that stuck with most of my family, especially the paternal side, and made its way into the affections of some of my closest friends. To my elementary school friends, I’m Graci, which is basically just my name cut in half; the typical nickname I would be expected to have. To my middle and high school friends, I’m Gracie, a similar variation to the version of my name cut in half, but with a simple letter twist. To my aunt, I’m Graciela Gracious, reflecting her creativity and how it intersects with the ways in which she expresses love. To most people I’ve met, though, I’m just Graciela. And don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing negative about that; I love my birth name. I just love the people who have given me nicknames a lot more.
Statement Columnist Graciela Batlle Cestero can be reached at gbatllec@umich.edu