The Story Behind a Name

One of the reasons this blog was created is to give a venue to my former and current students to share their work. This first one is  a former student of mine who I affectionately call "Jeng". She was among my first students when I began teaching in 2009. She was an Accountancy student back then when she became my student in English 1. She would later shift to Psychology where once more she became my student (for about two weeks) in Mandarin Chinese.

Through the years we would remain in touch, like chatting in the hallways or online (usually about her thesis). She will be graduating with a bachelor's degree in Psychology this October.--Sir G
 

Niena Jane Villanueva. What a lovely name, right? You have no other choice but to say "yes" since I am the one who is writing on this page and I will never know if you’ll agree with me or not. Just kiddin’. :)

It was Sunday when my I got curious about my name. Although I already asked by my English instructor to research about the meaning of my name five years ago, this time it’s different. Our pastor discussed about the servants of the Lord and their names. He discussed their Hebrew name with the corresponding meaning. Amazingly, they all lived by their names! The word ‘grace’ caught my attention a lot. My eyes were really sparkling while he was talking about grace. Then, I whispered a prayer, “Lord, I hope I have that name”. Because of this, I was more eager to know the meaning behind my name, its deepest meaning. Through this, I have the burning desire to live by my name.   

This is what I only know since I was a child. Niena is a combination of my mother’s and father’s name. ‘Nie’ was from Bernie and ‘na’ was from Ruena. However, that information is not enough so, I ‘googled’ it.  According to Wikipedia, Nina is the Babylonian goddess of the watery deep and daughter of Ea. My goodness! I do not even know Ea! Am I going to search again? I was thinking, if I will type Ea on the tab and click the SEARCH button, I will be obliged to read and understand the whole article. Yeah, I know. It will just make my nose bleed and waste my time in reading it all over again.

So, I have decided to ask my friend and intelligent English instructor about the meaning of my name. Here was his response:

Hello! Your first name and your family name are Spanish. Niena sounds like Niña, ‘little girl’ and Villanueva is ‘new house’. Jane however, is Hebrew. It’s the female version of John, Yochanan in Hebrew, Ioannes in Greek. It means YAH (a name of God) and CHANAH ‘grace’ – “God is gracious.”

To my surprise, my eyes got teary. Even I still do not know about my name, all my life, I lived by the grace of God. I grew up in a very imperfect family. A family that is unloving, boastful, and incomplete. My mom has no other source of income aside from our little store. I thank God because I knew Him since I was a child. Today, I am a graduating student of BS Psychology this coming October. I believe that it is not because of the abilities that I have but it is all by the grace of God. Now, I am determined to live by my name, to share the grace that I have to others as long as I breathe and to build a new house, new home with a loving, caring and God-fearing family. To God be all the Glory!