Namesake   

She smiled at us as she scanned our eager faces and asked us our names. “Zelda,” I announced when my turn came. Her nostrils flared, and a barely discernable frown flashed on her young cheeks, but I saw it all.

“But that’s Yiddish. Don’t you have a Hebrew name?” she pressed.

I didn’t. How I longed to have a pretty, Israeli-sounding name like Yael or Ayala! In kindergarten, I would look around enviously at my friends Aviva, Tamar, and Batsheva sitting in our little chairs. I would even have been happy with Miriam, Esther, or Naomi. And now, in first grade, my teacher had officially confirmed that my name was unattractive in her eyes, too.

I didn’t cry when I got home. But my father sensed that I was troubled. What happened to his exuberant little girl on her first day of school? Where were her smiles? Her chattering and prattling? So I told him.