Hi! I’m Aftan, Afrin, and Ama.

Playing name games with a bunch of strangers is like a form a torture. I can guarantee I won’t remember a single person’s name. My cheeks turn red. My heart starts racing. And I spend the whole time reciting my own name in my head until it’s my turn to speak.

Aftan. AF-tin.

Be loud but not too loud.

Articulate, but don’t sound like a robot.

Be ready for a quick quip about your name.

Which one? That it’s from the show Dallas? 

That it’s usually spelled Afton, but my dad changed it to Aftan?

That I went to high school with another Afton?

Oh boy. 

It’s my turn.

Face flush.

Heart pounding.

Say your name. 

Aftan.

Huh? Aspen? Afghan?

I say it again. But this time I curl the end into a question.

Um...Aftan?

Ugh, why do I say it like that? 

“Interesting. I’ve never heard that name before.”

I turn and stare at the person beside me. Why aren’t they talking yet?

Hurry up and say your name so people stop looking at me.

Thank goodness.

They start talking, and I start replaying the last 10 seconds in my head. 

I don’t hear the rest of the names. Not a single one.

Like I said, those games are useless.

But you have to play them.

Because names are important.

It’s who we are. I’m not Jenn or Angela. I won’t turn around if you call me Sarah or Kelly. I’m only Aftan. 

With an uncommon name like mine, I’ve probably thought about names more than most people. Despite the stress of having to introduce myself to a group of strangers, I love my name. I like the way it looks. I like that it’s unusual. I like that I’m the only Aftan Marie Fisher Hoffer in the whole world. Billions of people, and I’m the only one. How cool is that?

Still, at drive-thrus, I sometimes lie and say my name is something else, usually Lauren. It’s easier to use a familiar name. A luxury. 

Sometimes it backfires though. I made reservations under the name Lauren once, and when I showed up at the restaurant, they said they didn’t have my name. It turns out, they thought I said, “Juan” over the phone. Sometimes, ya just can’t win.

Being a foster mom means I’m always giving my name and email address over the phone. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten paperwork for Astan Hoffer. To eliminate any confusion, I started spelling it during phone calls, “Okay, it’s A. F as in Frank. T-A-N.”

I wish you could’ve been there the time a receptionist repeated the spelling back to me: A-F-R-A-N-K-T-A-N. You guys, she put Frank in the middle of my name! I mean, honestly, she probably heard my palm slap my forehead before I started to correct her.

Some people are hesitant to say my name. And others avoid it altogether. They don’t wanna mess it up. I get that. So to avoid any mispronunciations, they do an extended greeting to fill the space where my name should go, “Heeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyy...how are you?” 

I’m not sure if I prefer when people avoid saying my name or if they flat out get it wrong. One guy down the street called me “Afrin” for three years with complete confidence. Then he saw my engagement announcement in the newspaper. And he marched over to my house and apologized for getting it wrong for so long.

Obviously, I should’ve corrected him earlier. But as you’ve probably noticed, I have a little anxiety wrapped up in my name. And honestly, two weeks later he was calling me Afrin again anyway. Sometimes, what can ya do?

So when our first foster girls came to live with us, I was excited to figure out what they were going to call us. People have lots of opinions about this.

Some foster moms insist on being called Mom.

Some want to be called by their first name.

And others create a combo of the two: Momma Aftan or Momma A.

You can do whatever you want and whatever makes the kids comfortable.

Our situation is a little different because we have a teen mom and her baby. So we’re not just foster parents, we’re also grandparents. Having both girls call me Mom would be…weird. Plus, I was excited to be in my 30s and have my grandma name already established. 

So we asked our 16-year-old if her daughter could call us Ama and Appa. She loved it and decided to call us that too. I love when she calls me Ama. No one else in the world calls me that. 

Ama means “she loves” in Spanish. And I hope that’s something the girls always remember about me. She loves. Even when she messes up, overreacts, underreacts, or fails to act, she loves. When days are hard and the future feels scary, she loves. When she makes me change my outfit five times before leaving the house, embarrasses me in front of my friends, and makes me do my homework the second I walk in the door, she loves. She doesn’t always get things right, but I know she loves.

This life we’ve built for ourselves is beautiful, but it’s also really hard some days. And I don’t always get things right. Some days I don’t think I have what it takes. But most days I see the absolute beauty of it all. Blessings chase after me when I open my eyes to see them.

I know you don’t call me Ama. And it’s okay if you forget my name. To be honest, I may have forgotten yours. But I hope when you see me, you think to yourself, “Man, that Aftan, she loves.”