A Quote by Lupita Nyong'o

My parents gave me a Mexican name. In our culture, we are named after the events of the day.

Lupita Nyong'o

Quote Topics

After Culture Day Events Gave Me Mexican Name Named Our Parents

Quote Author

Lupita Nyong'o
Mexican - Actress
Born: March 1, 1983

I think for my parents it was like "A Boy Named Sue," the Johnny Cash song. A guy named Sue tries to track down his father to take it out on his father for naming him Sue. And his father says, "Look, I knew I wasn't going to be around. So I gave you the name so that you would grow up strong enough to take the hits and fight back." So I like to believe that's why my parents gave me this stupid name.

Domhnall Gleeson

My real name's Rakim - my parents named me after the god MC himself.

ASAP Rocky

Sometimes a nickname is used instead of the real name. But a nickname may offend either the one named or the parents who gave the name.

Russell M. Nelson

Warsan means "good news" and Shire means "to gather in one place". My parents named me after my father's mother, my grandmother. Growing up, I absolutely wanted a name that was easier to pronounce, more common, prettier. But then I grew up and understood the power of a name, the beauty that comes in understanding how your name has affected who you are.

Warsan Shire

Dr. Okun. Who's named after a special-effects guy named Jeff Okun, who had done Stargate for Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, who did Independence Day. But "Brakish" just came up one day when Jeff Goldblum and I were improvising, and he told me his character's name and I told him mine.

Brent Spiner

My son is actually named after Beck, the musician. We heard Beck on the radio and thought that was a good nickname for a child. We named our son Beckett so we could call him Beck - we reverse engineered. And then after he was born and I saw the name on the birth certificate I realized Beckett was a really pretentious name, way too literary. Luckily he's grown into it. We nearly named my second son Dashiell. Can you imagine? Beckett and Dashiell. It would have been a disaster of pretentiousness.

Lauren Groff

The man who buried Malcolm X - my Muslim imam, priest - he, after I got beat up by police... came to me, and he said, 'You don't need this American name.' And I was susceptible to it at the time because, God knows, I had just gotten whipped near to death. So he gave me an Arab name; he gave me the name Amir Barakat.

Amiri Baraka

I was named after my paternal grandmother, my dadi. She died before I was born, which is why my parents named me Amy.

Amyra Dastur

My middle name is actually Sigourney, I'm named after me Dad's favourite movie which is 'Alien,' named after the actress Sigourney Weaver who gives birth to an alien, I was born to believe in aliens really.

Scarlett Moffatt

Ledisi means to come here, to bring forth. It’s a Nigerian word and it’s from the Yorubu culture, I believe, and my parents named me, my dad and my mom, and really my dad, and I had no choice in that. That’s my real name and that’s what it means.

Ledisi

My parents named me after Uriah the Hittite, one of King David's mighty men in the Old Testament of the Bible, who was known for his fearlessness. I've thought about it, and there may be a connection between my name and my personality.

Urijah Faber

Normal people, fear the day their parents die. Screwed up people, fear the day their parents kill. My mum killed a guy, at my wedding. So I can pretty much check that off. But, she's my mum. And no matter what she did I just can't walk away from her. She gave me birth. She gave me love. She gave me the ability to make a cigarette fire look like it was started by the hot water heater.

Christopher Titus

I'm actually named Matthew William Kearney: my middle name is named after my grandfather.

Mat Kearney

No one in my family had ever attended school [...] On the first day of school my teacher, Miss Mdingane, gave each of us an English name. This was the custom among Africans in those days and was undoubtedly due to the British bias of our education. That day, Miss Mdingane told me that my new name was Nelson. Why this particular name I have no idea.

Nelson Mandela

I was named after the great emperor Cyrus as my father, Farokh Broacha, was a great admirer of the Persian emperor. Continuing the tradition, I have named my son after Mikhail Gorbachev, someone whom I admire. He gave his people freedom.