Notes

The name Eric is a common Nordic name. It was the name of many Vikings and had derived from Norse. Many of the famous kings of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden have been named Eric, and the name Eric has always been indicative of power in these Norse countries – in fact, it practically translates to "sole ruler."

Now, unfortunately, I am not Danish, Swedish, nor Norweigan. I am Hispanic, so none of the feasible Nordic explanations make much sense. I asked my mother, and she did not have a clue. So, I ventured beyond.

I spent ages looking through my family tree, just hoping I could find any fathomable reason for me to be named Eric. Unfortunately, the tree had no Erics – perhaps because it is Autumn. My next search was online. I was not looking for another Eric among my family; I was just praying for Google to have some sort of logical reason for someone of Hispanic origin to be named Eric. I found nothing intelligible.

With nobody else to consult and the reasonable etymology behind my name seemingly unreasonable, I was left with nothing but my limited thinking skills. I was unable to find a reason for my name until I took a step away from technical analysis, and went back to extreme simplicity.

My father's name is Ricardo E. Duarte. From here, you can already see where my name is present. I combined his middle initial with the first three letters of his name and found my first name after hours of searching in-depth, although the answer was in plain sight.

When I was younger, I did not appreciate my name, and I did not think it fit me. On top of this, I thought it just sounded odd; the two syllables did not flow together. I would have much rather preferred to be addressed by my middle name, Javier, throughout my life. However, despite thinking all this, I never vocalized it and kept in in my head.

As the years went by, I felt more comfortable with my name. I am not certain if this is due to me starting to grow to like my name, or just me having no will to act to change my identity. So, here I am now, almost ten years since I first thought this – still going by the simple and in my case, meaningless, Eric.