Martin Aldunate

My name is alright I guess. It’s kind of annoying that anytime I have to tell someone my last name for whatever reason I usually have to spell it out for them, and they still get it wrong. Almost every single time people think my last name ends on a T when in reality it ends in TE. I can see how people can get this mixed up as they can sound pretty similar, but it’s happened so often that I started putting more emphasis on the E at the end and pausing in between the two yet people still manage to get it wrong. Another thing that’s annoying is how they always misspell my last name by putting the A before the N so that it ends up as Alduante instead of Aldunate. So I’ve just started to spell my name out slowly whenever someone asks for it. 

    As for my first name, I’m content with it. It’s a first name that’s common but farther down the list than other names in both English and Spanish, unlike names like James, John, etc. Sometimes it’s nice to not have to hear someone say a name and wonder who they’re talking to. I actually am really happy about it from the Spanish side because there are a lot of common Spanish names that I really don’t like the way they translate to English or the way they sound. For example, Juan, Francisco, Manuel. But in general, I think I tend to prefer Spanish names and pronunciation over English. There’s just something about it that makes it sound more elegant, passionate, detailed, etc. English just sounds extremely orthodox and bland in comparison. The only problem is in Spanish adults often call me Martincito because I’m younger than them and that type of little add-on really annoys me because of how childish it sounds. I really can’t complain about my first name though, at least I got the better name between me and my brother. I think the name Vicente suits him well, but I don’t think it would work for me, it just looks and sounds worse in my opinion. 

As for nicknames in English, there really isn’t a nickname for Martin like there are other names. I don’t have a nickname relating to my person either, which I’m also fine with, I’d rather have people just refer to me by some regular name than some characteristic that I may not like. The only people who don’t call me Martin are my parents (mainly my mom) and that’s because they call me Cosito which means little thing. It does feel kind of nice to have a special nickname based on the kind of relationship you share with someone, but I’d probably cringe super hard if anyone else called me that. 

Although it is a very common name, I would have been happy and maybe preferred if my name was Daniel, since it sounds and looks nice in both English and Spanish, plus the abbreviations Danny and Dan look fine as well. But in the end, much like other things, I don’t really care that much, so my name is fine as it is and it just needs to be something simple enough that people can reference to me easily.