!carajo!

What´s in a name, anyway? If your name is carajo....a lot...well in the spanish speaking world anyway. I can´t believe I´m admitting my middle name but it´s just too funny not to share. In the official Spanish dictionary it means damnit! Seriously. (Hmmm, maybe it would be a good idea to get those computer people at the hospital to take off my middle name when I chart. Really, what Spanish speaking person is going to take the recommendations of someone named carajo seriously!!) And if you watch films dubbed in Spanish, you get a slightly different meaning: expletive after expletive after expletive, bleep, bleep bleep. Carajo! Carajo! Carajo! This I knew from my trip to Guatemala last year. Well, according to my sources in Spain, it means that and a little more: carajo is also "the male´s instrument" specifically, the balls. I cringe even writing this. I love my parents dearly but seriously, what were you thinking? I know they had no idea, I was afraid to tell them and relieved when they couldn´t stop laughing!! So if I ever move to a spanish speaking country, you´ll have to forgive me but I´m gonna need to change my name. So here´s a thought for all you parents to be: prior to choosing a name, it might be prudent to research the meaning in all languages!!