I'm Not Real

Hey buddy,

Since we opened up the subject of names this week, I wanted to talk about mine! Well, let me get you hooked--did you know that Arisa isn't my real name?

When I was a young boy my father did not take me to the city to see the marching band, but he and my mother did give me a terribly long name. And as a child who had to learn the 28 letters of the alphabet, this was the bane of my existence. After all, how could you expect a child to write their full name straight outta the bat? 

How could they expect me to hit a home run with a name like:

Maria Manuela Cassandra R. [Regenio] Turingan? 

Imagine writing this for a test--no, just imagine writing... (Very Exasperated) Writing!

Well, anyways, I never liked my name that much. It just felt too... biblical, y'know? Maria was a variation of the name Mary, while Manuela was the feminine version of Immanuel ('God is with us'). And, well, Cassandra was just another long, pretty name so--why not just add it to the cart, yeah? We can just get it through expedited free shipping along with my middle name and surname. Tee-hee. :D

But hey, that's not even the worst part. For the rest of my years as Maria Manuela Cassandra R. Turingan, everyone called me M̴̫̉ḁ̸̚n̵̨͘ū̵̼ȩ̸̑l̸̞̑a̷̬̒! I had three names for everyone to choose from but they had to collectively chose the worst one. (Uh, no offense to all the Manuelas out there.) Naturally, I had to condition my friends into calling me Maria instead, or my nickname, Iya. Neither of which I actually felt attached to, to be honest. Now, you must be wondering: how did Arisa come to be?

Well, buddy, I picked it out myself. Plucked it outta the shelf, shoved it into the cart, ripped off the price tag and made it mine. You see, when I came to Japan I was given the choice to either keep my absurd long name or... pick a new one--and, uh, you obviously know which yellow brick road I took. Frankly, I would rather lay my life down on the highway, get turned into road kill, turn into a worm, and eat my limb than write my full birth name in K̶͕͐a̷̞̓t̷̜̽a̷͇͝ḱ̸͈ạ̸̕ń̴͍a̴̻͊. But thanks to my very wise, cool, good decision I can now sleep comfortably at night. And now anytime I introduce myself to people, I would get comments on my name. Most of which were along the lines of--'you look like an Arisa'.

So, do you think you look like your name? Would you ever want to change your name? What does your name mean? Do you have any nicknames?

Yours,

Maria Manuela Cassandra R. Turingan

PS. I'm abusing the Cursed Font.