My whole first name is “Rafael Carlo.” Embarrassingly, I didn’t actually know this until I was 5 years old. I’d always just gone by “Carlo” and I still do today. It turns out my parents picked “Rafael” because it was a family name in the Philippines where both of them grew up. Part of my dad’s name is “Rafael” and my great uncle’s name was the same. But when my mom found out that Americans might pronounce the name instead of the more Spanish sounding , she made sure to hedge with a second name that could only be pronounced one way. And I became “Carlo.” I like this question because it can bring out a lot about culture, about family, and about what your parents hoped for you when you were just starting out in the world.

Source: The phenomenal question bank from the Story Corps website

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