These Are My Names

"Because it is my name! Because I cannot have any other!”

My guy is an actor who performed for years in theatre, and this quote from The Crucible by Arthur Miller might be his favorite one. It makes me quietly chuckle when, each time we touch upon the subject of loyalty to oneself, he utters this sentence.

Because me, I do have another name.

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I was born Mariline Fiori, on the 1rst of May 1975. I have no middle name.
Mariline Fiori, that’s what I have.

Fiori comes from Italy and means flowers.
Mariline was a last minute change of mind, because the real plan was to call me Marie France.

What a plan.
Marie was for my father, after his mother whom I had never known.
France was for my mother, who, as an immigrant, probably was on a quest for some much needed legitimacy.

But no one truly remembers what happened. They just changed their minds. So Mariline it is, spelled like that, which isn’t the correct spelling.

Very soon, I just became Marie.

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I love Marie. I love the simplicity of that name. It’s an…