Go ahead! Pick a name

I always thought, inside our mother’s womb, as a fetus, “Why couldn’t we decide our own features and characteristics to live with?” Let there be a vending machine with all sorts of adjectives to choose from. Then I would have chosen “big” for my eyes and “tall” for my height. How nice! However, the reality made me end up with small eyes and the height tall enough to let most of my friends view the very top of my head. Obviously you are not allowed to choose your own looks, your height, nor your personality. Then what about your name? Couldn’t we at least get to pick those by our personal preference?


It is not that I woke up this morning, suddenly got the feeling that the name I already have is lame or, all of a sudden, felt the need to defy against my parents that I decided to change my name from “Sumin” to “Eli.” Actually, I have been thinking about this for quite a few years now. So, out of all the names that exist, or maybe not even exist, why did I choose Eli?

Eli, although same for all the other names as well, has lengthy meanings behind it posted on Google, Wikipedia, and Baby-naming sites. According to Wikipedia, the name Eli means “’God is exalted’ or height” and Google says “Eli means 'ascension' in Hebrew. In the Old Testament he is the high priest of Israel and the teacher of Samuel." In England, Eli has been used as a Christian given name since the Protestant Reformation. The naming site "Firstnamestore” even has a precise and professional prophecy explained for the name Eli. For example, did you know that the personality of Eli is supposed to be “sincere, and no one doubts him”? Well, I didn’t know just until now.

Since I was eight years old, the name “Eli”, not in terms of “EE-li” but in terms of “short for ‘Eli-zabeth’”, has had a significant meaning for me. “Eli” was the first and the last friend I ever had in my first school I went to in the US. Although I got to attend the school for only 3 months, then transferred to another school due to family issues, the 90 days of school felt “hell-like” to me. Walking through the big, metal door into the hallway full of 400 little boys and girls of blue colored eyes and yellow hair (their eyes all fixed on me), then into the classroom of 40 so-called “class mates”, sitting in the chair, 1 meter (feeling more like 20) away from my friend, I felt like I was the little black stain on a pure white surface. I was called the “mute girl”, invited to parties but rejected the next day, asked to do home works of which were not mine, called “disabled”. However, then came Eli, with the remote control, she came to me and “un-muted” me. On the first day of school, during my first lunchtime, she came to me with a great big smile, and asked me to help her open her bag of pizza. The “helping hand” she asked me for that day was actually the biggest “helping hand” that she offered to me. I still remember the cute poem I wrote in English class just before I left the school. It went “Eli, my Elevator, she bring me up”

I don’t know what the mothers and fathers out there thought of when they named their baby “Eli” but I can say somewhere far back in name dictionary, I can find “string of hope” below the name “Eli”