A Story Behind My Name

Some people say your name represents who you are. Your name is a prayer from your parents when you were born. Since a prayer from parents certainly answered without any barrier, so it becomes a gift to you. I believe it without any doubt.

My parents gave a very nice name to me, alhamdulillah... :) My first name, Mariana, came from my grandmother's nick name when she was a child. She used to be called with this name. Then she got sick from time to time and nobody knows why. Then somebody suggested it might caused by her name. The name might be too heavy for her. So then my great-grandparents add another name to be her new nickname : Sifat. Since then she never sick anymore. My grandmother full name becomes Sifat Mariana Tanjung. She's from West Sumatra, so she has the Minang clan name.

Appearently, might be happened by having this name as well, I got sick or injured more often than my other siblings. I got hospitalized several times, like hitting an aircon when I was a child, got nails stuck in my foot, injured my front head by a classical profile chair when fighting with my brother, got thypus, a few times fainted in school, got food poisoned, having an asthma, and now I've been suffering for tinnitus (a permanent damage occured in my left ear causing a continous soft buzzing sound). I don't know whether the name is giving a burden to me or not, but one thing I know for sure that I still survive until today. Alhamdulillah.. :) Hopefully I don't get any serious illness or injury anymore in the future, aamiin.. 

Anyway, when I look-up on the internet behind the name Mariana, I found a very interesting fact that there's a deepest part of the world's oceans called Mariana Trench. It is located in the western Pacific Ocean, to the east of the Mariana Islands. The sea depth of Mariana Trench is able to submerge the highest mountain in the world, the Mount Everest in the Himalayas. Wow, feeling excited finding something cool exists in this world called with your name. :D

(click on the image above for a better resolution)

The original languange of Mariana comes from Spanish. Maybe it comes from the history of The Mariana Islands that were claimed by Spain in 1668. Spain established a colony there and gave the islands the official title of Las Marianas in honor of Spanish Queen Mariana of Austria.

The meaning of Mariana itself after discovering from world wide web are :

- a family speaker (maybe sometimes, but usually not)

- a sympathetic (incorrect, often being careless :-/)

- kind (well.. :D)

- always blessed (alhamdulillah..)

- decision maker (yes, correct)

- brave (will do whatever it takes to reach determination)

- stubborn (sometimes it's true :D)

- original, not artificial (prefer to be true expressing what I feel)

- unique (many of my friends told me that I'm weird, a freak, whatever -_-)

- has a leader soul (driven to lead somehow, finding it hard to follow and being dictated)

- a risk taker (might be closely to insane)

My last name is Rahman. It comes from my father's name. My father is a muallaf, he converts to Islam before marrying my mother. When he did the syahadat (a convert ceremonial of saying faithfully that we believe that There is no God but Allah, and Prophet Muhammad is the messenger), his name changed to be Abdulrahman Tanara, means God's Servant. This name was given by Buya Hamka, a national ulama (scholar/pious) who founded Al-Azhar in Indonesia. My father is a Chinese, so he has the Chinese clan name Tan, in Indonesia name becomes Tanara.

The Rahman name itself, comes from one of The 99 Allah's Name (Asmaul Husna) : Ar-Rahman, which means The Most Gracious. This name is one of the main characteristic of Allah that we as a muslim always call it in every single prayer. Bismmillahirrahmanirrahim : In the name of Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful.

I remember an Islamic proverb says : Man arafa nafsahu, arafa Rabbahu (whoever know themself, know their God). I hope by writing about my name, I will know a little about myself. By knowing about who I am, hopefully there's a chance insyaa Allah of knowing about our God, no other but Allah.

Then the last thing about my name is my nickname. It is taken right from the middle of my first name, maRIAna. Correct, that's my nickname. I used to be called with the nickname : Ria. :D My mother told me that this nickname means cheerful, came from the original Indonesian word Ceria. She hopes that I will always be cheerful just as my name. Aamiin. :)

Okay that's all a short story behind my name. I hope you get to know me a little bit better. See ya! ;D