Dalia Abdelwahab Audio Feature Final Script

SCRIPT: “Nice ! Where’d You Get That From?” Dalia Abdelwahab April 2020

You can’t choose your name… Or can you? This is a collection of stories behind various individuals’ , whether they are their preferred names or birth names.

MUSIC: Sad royalty-free music (0-2 seconds) Music gets interrupted by a voice blurting out: “We interrupt our program to bring you this special report.” The sound of lyrics from Eminem‟s “My Name Is” is heard. “Hi! My name is (what?) My name is (who?)” Nat sound: People introducing themselves. “Hey; I‟m Sara.” “Hi; my name is Mohamed Lotfy.” “Hey! It‟s Aya.”

You can’t choose your name… Or can you? Some of us simply go by their given names, and others have aliases. As for me, it’s a complicated story, my real name...

Hala El-Said (HE): “In Lithuania, it means “the goddess of fate or luck”.” (length of the SB)

That’s my mom, Hala El-Said, whom I’d rather have call me “Lia.” It’s a long story I’m willing to tell you, but first: A quick linguistics class. Mom, why is my real name spelled D-A-L-I-A, not D-A-H-L-I-

A?

HE: “Well, in the Egyptian passport, they write the name of its bearer both in English and Arabic, and they have official translations for every name. The official translation in Egypt for Dalia is D-A-L-I-A. And, the, also this spelling is in French, Spanish, German, and Italian, only English that has an H with it. So it's not a misspelling, it's just according to the different countries - how they write it.”

And this, to British linguist David Crystal, is how language works. In his book of the same name, he explains that even when the name has a common root (in this case, Latin), different languages will spell and pronounce the name in a way that is unique to each one of them. But what even IS a name?

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The sound of a radio knob is heard, before lyrics from Bridgit Mendler‟s “Ready Or Not”.

“Hello, my name is… Nice to meet you!”

From the Merriam-Webster dictionary’s definition, a name is “an identifying word, or words, by which an individual is intimately known or designated.” Yes, “words”. Plural.

Abdelrahman Diaa (AD): “Because I have a high GPA, people call me „Dexter‟ sometimes.”

That’s an awesome , Dexter, but talk to me about your real name.

AD: “Okay, my first name is „Abdelrahman‟... That‟s pretty normal. Pretty normal, common name here in Egypt… but my father‟s name alone is called 3 names: Mohammed Diaa El-Din.”

In Egypt, this is not uncommon. Dexter explains.

AD: “... And that actually is a trend, in his, from my grandfather, their side of the family, they have it like that…”

The closest convention Egypt had to middle names was manifested in the form of naming one’s child multiple first names, until the practice got outlawed in 2016 out of fear it would mix up ancestries and for other unspecified security reasons. I do not have a . But meanwhile, in other countries like Turkey…

Hajar “Deniz” Sammy (HDS): “You can have one or two names, and some people actually have three.”

While middle names are common in Turkey, individuals there are usually called by their first names.

HDS: “In my household, I‟m actually named „Deniz‟.”

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Officially, this is Hajar Sammy, but being half Turkish, she also identifies by this second name.

In other cases, however, said second name could actually be none other than your last name, especially if you have a “generic” first name.

Ahmed Hashish (AH): “And they‟ll think: „Oh, wow! Is that actually your last name? There‟s no way that‟s actually… Your name, right?‟ And they‟ll make some kind of weed joke or something like that.”

Allow me to introduce you to…

AH: “Hi; my name is Ahmed Hashish.”

Yes, this is his actual last name.

AH: “There‟s, like, a million people named Ahmed. You know? Everyone knows at least five. So, if I‟m just another Ahmed, then, it‟s not really special; is it?”

And that’s where I am currently at: Not feeling the specialness of my name.

HE: “I know that Dalia is not a common name in your generation. It's a little bit old, and you wanted a new name.”

Perhaps there’s more in common between Ahmed and I than I thought, since this incident made me think…

Nat sound: The opening lyric to Madonna‟s “American Life”: “Do I have to change my name?”

Abdelwahab Ezzat (AE): “To change it legally, it's very difficult, because you have a dual nationality …”

Nat sound: U.S. National Anthem/Egyptian national anthem mashup.

“... and you have to change so many papers here and there.”

In an essay penned by author Haylen Beck, it is explained that pen names are nothing new. Authors have been using pen names ever since being an author became a thing in first place. One of the most common factors behind that was, as Beck puts it, “good old sexism”.

HE: You know; there was a very famous writer in Egypt; she was called Aisha Abdel Rahman. And she had a pen name by, the, that she chose, Bent el Shati‟i…”

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Nat sound: Riverbank.

“Daughter of the Riverbank.”

“... because at that time, women were not allowed to go publicly with, with their names on the newspapers and so on. And so she chose the name Bint el Shati‟i, so it's not really something strange or anything.”

Nat sound: Shhh...

That’s reassuring, Mom and Dad, but let’s go back in time.

Nat sound: Clock ticking.

Why did you name your only child “Dalia” in first place?

HE: “We reconsidered Dana…”

Nat sound: Buzzer.

“... As it means a precious pearl in Arabic but also there's another meaning for it, which is the head of a missile and we didn't want anybody to get confused with the name.”

Going back to Crystal’s “How Language Works”, Arabic and English are derived from completely different roots, so, to find a name pronounceable in both languages is a bit of a challenge.

HE: “I really like the dahlia flower. It has many different colors, and it is very delicate, and I also imagined my child to be a beautiful delicate child.”

Nat sound: Garden ambiance.

Perhaps my real name isn’t as bad as I thought it was, after all. But who am I to people? Dalia or Lia?

HE: “I'm not used to this name. You see, I always called you Dalia or Biscuit and so it's just that I cannot use it. That's all. But I like the name very much.”

I’ll be both. For now.

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This audio feature was produced by Dalia Abdelwahab for the Audio Production course at the American University in Cairo, taught by Professor Kim Fox in the Spring semester of 2020. Special thanks to Hala El-Said, Abdelwahab Ezzat, Hajar Sammy, Ahmed Hashish, and Abdulrahman Diaa for their insightful interviews. All my nat sounds and my background music were sourced from YouTube. I also sample Eminem’s “My Name Is”, Bridgit Mendler’s “Ready Or Not”, and Madonna’s “American Life” in this documentary. This is protected by fair use laws.

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