“Hikmet uh? Do you know what it means?”
I nod. “It means wisdom.”
A satisfied look for at least this girl, in front of them, knows the meaning of the word. And when I first came here to
“Hik-met, like a hic-cup.”
I roll my eyes and decide “if that makes it easy.”
My name has raised so many brows before and continues to do so. It started during my brief stay in the East. The Afghani community there never heard of such a thing—a girl with a man’s name. My boss though found it interesting, so he started calling me “Hikmatullah”. Then I would tell people to “just call me Hikma” if that is easy. I forgot now when it is that I stopped doing that. “My name is Hikmet” I assert.
Now that I think about my name, I don’t even know who named me it. May be mom, dad, but for sure it wasn’t my great-grandma who gave a special name for my elder sister: she called her “Nurhan”.
Of course there are those who are convinced that ‘Hikmet’ isn’t at all my name, or that I am Ethiopian. And there are a few who found it imperative to teach me about language and culture, who the name belongs to.
“No sister, Hikmat is a Persian name. It doesn’t mean wisdom…”
“So what does it mean, the way you’ve learned it?”
“In my country we’ve so many heroes named Hikmat. It means umm, goodness, it means ummm….”
Then the Turkish say Hikmat is a Turkish name. And of course one can imagine what the Arabs would say.
“Ahh, yeah. It is my country name.” People make a point as though, being Ethiopian, a woman and ‘Hikmet’ is all a wrong permutation.
If you’re still wondering then “Hikmet” comes from an Arabic word meaning “wisdom”.
I don’t know much about how feminine or masculine the word can be though. That I will leave for all the different cultures and societies.
I know one thing for sure: my name is Hikmet, and there is much to live up to.
“pikmek?”
“no honey, say ‘hikmet’”
“pikmek..” her eyes wide open hand stretched out for another round of game.
“Asle” she now pokes her chest with those little fingers and tells me her name.
“Yes, Asle…you’re Asle. My sweet little friend.” I give up teaching her how to say my name right and start another round of game. I repeat in my heart, “pikmek” there is nothing like kids. :D
6 comments:
nice name. i come from Maldives which is a bunch of islands where we have our own language. and ur name is in our language as well. it means "morale" as in wisdom vise.
how wonderful, I have never heard of your country until now (adds to my ignorance list...)alhamdulilah now I do. Really neat thing that you use Hikmet in your language. I love etymology and linguistics. It'd be nice to compile the different words and references in all the languages...Masha'allah
Love ur name ;) and it suits u... Ive been meaning to write a "whats in a name?" post for awhile (re the "muslim" name thing)
hmm, that would be completely interesting E. You know how i feel about those things...and if i start now i'll go on and on (like that intense look i had over the model we saw by Canada place...)
Ohh, a character in a novel I just read actually said "a name is very important..." but seriously whats in a name? you should post something!
;) miss u much
Salams,
My name is Hikmet too (I am female) and I get the whole "my uncle is called Hikmet" thing all the time! I was named after my granmother. Would love to get to know you better.
haha, that is awesome, another sis on my side!! welcome...
;)
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