Huh?

“Wow, That’s Interesting”

“Are you serious?”

“That is really cool!”

“What does that mean?”

These are all things that I have been hearing my whole life – and it’s always about my last name. People are fascinated, confused, or both when they hear or see it. The first thing they ask me is where does it come from and I always say that I don’t know or I’m not sure which both are complete lies. I know where it comes from but the story and history behind it is too long and I’ve said it so many times.

            So I guess now you’re wondering where it comes from? Well get ready for a long story! Originally it’s Greek, but eventually it made its way to Eastern Europe (Spain, and Portugal) and that’s where it got its numerous ways to spell it. My grandfather always told me that “no matter how you spell it, we are all related in some way or somehow”. And because of how uncommon it is I just always believed this to be true.

Some people say it in the craziest ways I have ever heard! I have heard everything from “ZIM-E-NICE” to “X-E-MIES”. The proper way to say it is “X-ZIM-A-KNEES” OR “ZIM-A-KNEES”. What frustrates me the most about this is the people that don’t even try to sound it out they just give up right away. I had to learn that it’s something that will always happen and I need to grow tolerance for it. This is the biggest lesson I learned from having these experiences.

            People find it comical whenever I get upset when people do it. My friends always joke and tell me to chill out. This upsets me because in my opinion a name is all we really have. I mean if you have a name like “John White” or “Mary Jones” you really cannot get where I’m coming from. I mean yes it is only a name, but it’s MY name.

            I will never forget this one time where this lady was arguing with me about my last name. She was very upset, she called my name “grammatically incorrect”. She spent about 5 minutes lecturing at me about how it should be spelled differently if I pronounced it x-zim-a-knees or how it should be pronounced differently since it’s spelled Ximines. I just sat there with a grin on my face as she screamed and yelled about it. After she was done I said to her in the sweetest voice possible, “Who died and made you grammar corrector of the year? Oh okay didn’t think so, so please go somewhere and stop disrespecting me”. It might sound like I was being rude but trust me, that woman deserved it.

            I also can never forget the time somebody told me that if I am this upset about my name to just change it. I paused for a minute after they said that and simply said “ Oh no way!” A name is much more then just a name. I just can’t wake up one day and change it. My last name has legacy to it. Great people before me have had this name, generations of great Ximines’s. Even when I get married I will keep my last name, to me it has power and history; things I just can’t simply just let go of.

            It’s amazing how somebody can see my last name and know everything about my family. I once had a substitute teacher who used to teach with my grandfather Robert Louis Ximines Sr. He was an educator and podiatrist someone who was well known. She sat down and she told me about my grandfather, a man I only knew for 6 years before he passed away. She told me how intelligent and caring he was. That conversation is something that has stuck with me until this day.

            My father once told me that “I’m an Ximines, which means that I am great.” I never really got what he was trying to say until now. My last name is way more then just a last name. It’s who I am, where I come from. I come from greatness.