What's in a name?
"Are you guys related?" A question I have been asked my entire life, and the answer is most likely no. Growing up around people of the Jewish faith, the last name "Kaplan" is common in my community. However, I never looked deeper into meaning, because my last name irritated me. When researching my last name, I was not surprised to find that the origin was Jewish. It also comes from the name "Cohen", another name with Jewish origin. In contrast, my first name is quite obviously different than the other Rachel's and Ava's I grew up with. When researching the name "Hayley", the name has derived from an English town meaning "hay clearing."The name Hayley is Anglo-Saxon, other spellings such as Haley are of English origin.
However, as I grew up my last name bothered me less. I came to terms with my culture, thus appreciating how my last name connected me to my Jewish faith. Quite literally my last name does define me. It defines my background and the religion that my family has claimed for the last few generations. My first name does not communicate anything about me. To be honest, my parents just enjoyed the name Hayley.
I can relate closely with the idea of "there are two me's, the me who is the individual and the me who is a part of a family of four..." I am a different person than who I am at home. At home, I have to be mature. I am the only child in my household and I hold a lot of responsibility. I cannot let loose or slack off. I have to take care of both my house, and my pets. At school, I always feel like I can be myself. This might sound different from how teenagers usually think of their life at school. However, school has always been a place where I can be surrounded by all of my friends and be most like myself. Additionally, I am a different version of "me" when I am the captain of the cross-country team. At practice, I must let go of the negativity that I might have. This is because I have to be a role model for all of my other team members. It is important that I do not let the negativity get in the way of who I am as a leader.
I really liked how you presented the meaning of your last name and first name, and the history and religious aspect. I din't know that there was specific last name that was connected to the Jewish faith, and I thought that was really interesting. In your last paragraph about the "two me's" I like how you connected it with three different versions of you. It was interesting how describes the different version and how you feel about being them.
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