American in Spain

Clerical Error

April 1, 2009

My sweet daughter, I'm afraid we had a little hiccup at the local town hall registry when I was putting your official name down on the books. You see, the lady there read a stray pen mark on the paper as part of your name, and your name came out as "Gnora" instead of "Nora". I was furious, of course. But the lady insisted that now that it was in the computer, it couldn't be changed. She informed that, according to Spanish law, you can request a name change when you are eighteen years old, and it costs like 1,000€. I haven't told your mother yet, because she's going to flip out. As the irrevocableness of the situation has begun to set in, the name Gnora has started to grow on me. Semi-educated English speakers will know about words that start with "gn", and Spanish speakers will be confused and probably just ignore the "g" like they should. So your name still sounds the same. It's just that on the official documents, it's going to be Gnora. Hey, at least your last name didn't officially end up as Fafmuffem! So that's a plus. Sorry, Gnora, sweetie. I hope you can forgive me.

Naah, I'm just joshing. Happy April Fool's Day! Thank god you weren't born on April 1st. I was concerned.

Atención españoles asustados! Esto es una broma. Hoy, el 1 de abril, es como el Dí­a de los Inocentes en EEUU. Su nombre queda como "Nora".