My dear mother's name is a little strange, because her mother, my little batchan, didn't know Portuguese.

Do you have any idea what that name is?

I promise that I will only reveal it at the end, because now I will tell you that my mother and my aunts are respectively TÓ, KÓ, KIKA and NÊ. But today the name in Portuguese prevails because it is more sensible.

My mother Ana (Tó) on the left. and my aunt Lu (Kó) on the right.

KÓ and KIKA are called that because it was the affectionate way that Obaatchan found to call Eiko KÓ and Kikue Kika. The neighbors, even though they thought it was beautiful, named Eiko Luzia and Kikue Laura, which are also persuasive names.

Not forgetting that NÊ comes from Onetchan, who is Mizue's older sister, but for those who want to understand, Elisa is Liz's flower.

And my mother was always TÓ because my “little batchan” wanted Tokuko who became TÓ, because she’s small. Today, all that remains are the laughs and tricks she did as a child.

Now, the boys, I mean, my mother's brothers are ANCHAM, SANCHAM, MAKU and HIRO. Did you see that cute rhyme?

Ojiitchan and Obaatchan liked rhyming so much that the boys all got “something” + HIRO.

ANCHAM is what the eldest son is called in many Japanese families and in my mother's family it is also like that. My uncle ANCHAM was Yoshihiro, the oldest and most know-it-all who didn't know any Portuguese.

SANCHAM, his name is actually Sadahiro, who married my other aunt's sister, becoming a big family... cousins, uncles and aunts.

MAKU is the nickname of Massahiro, Uncle Jorge who was always simple, direct and automatic MAKU for my aunts to call him that.

My uncle Jorge (Maku) 1st left. and my aunt Lu (Kó) 1st dir.

The youngest HIRO, you already guessed that his real name is Hiroshi, right? Thus completing the Hiros' house that Obaatchan never tired of placing on the boys.

And now it's time to reveal TÓ's real name, which is a palindrome in Portuguese: ANA.

Ana...which rhymes with banana, chicken soup, orange, but it's just short and cute and very easy to decorate like macaw, ara, skirt...

To make it shorter and funnier, my mother decided to shorten everything in her children's names: Nancy is just Nancy and Fábio is just Fábio. Of the names in Japanese in this generation, nothing appeared and from now on it was history.

* This story was written by one of the participants of the "Nikkei Names" Workshop, held on August 26, 2014 at Bunkyo, in São Paulo .

© 2014 Nancy Ishikawa Yassuda