Sophia. Oh, what a name. All the beauty and femininity in the world. 

Sophia is like the roses my mother grows in the garden, sweet-smelling and beautiful. But should you get close enough, dangerous and spiky. 

It is like the weather, forever changing, forever complicated. One day beautiful and bright. the next tragic and dark. It is a deceptive name. 

To the Greeks, “Sophos”, meaning wisdom and skill. That’s not me. To my grandparents, I am Saint Sophia of Rome. I represent faith and hope and charity. That’s not me. To my mother, I am Sophia Loren, whom I was supposedly named after. Beautiful and confident and strong. That’s not me. To my friends, I am just Soph. Bubbly and witty and clever. That’s not me. 

It is neither my father nor my mother. If my father had chosen it, it would be Camila. I would be perfect and dutiful. If my Mother had chosen it, it would have been Lily. I would be pure and innocent. Instead, it was a book of girl names that set my fate. It was not chosen for me. It was simply chosen. 

So who am I really?

In the Bible Sophia is the Holy Spirit. A gift from God to the Earth. An angel. She was all the goodness in the world, hope and good fortune followed her wherever she went. 

Sophia carries so much weight and power, I’ll never be able to live up to that. I’ll never know who or what I am truly supposed to be. I’ll never know which Sophia’s footsteps I’m supposed to follow.

 My name means beauty, grace, charity, wisdom, and so on. I am none of those things. Or—maybe I am all of them. 

We are like icebergs. We reveal just a tiny bit of who we are, the rest lies below the surface.

Maybe who I am has not yet reached the surface. And that’s fine with me. 

Sophia.