Raneem Janine Abdul-Karim Othman Muhammad Ali Salah Isa Musa Yousef Dawud Harb Saadah. That is what I wrote on the full name line on the worksheet my 2nd grade teacher gave me. Until this day, I still don’t know how to respond when someone asks me what my middle name is. Do I say Janine? Or do I include my other 11 names and educate the person on Palestinian customs? It’s common in Palestinian culture to know your genealogy by adding your fathers name to the already-existing trail of names, of his father, his fathers father, and so on. In this case, Janine is an additional name my parents gave me, Abdul-Karim is my father, Othman is my grandfather, Muhammad is my great-grandfather, and so on.
When I was younger, I didn’t understand why we needed to track our heritage; wasn’t Saadah enough for tracing back family? As I got older, I realized the answer is no. I found out when my dad was younger, his village alone had more than 100,000 Palestinian Saadah, and that didn’t include any extended relatives living outside of Beit Mahseer. Because of the huge numbers, we identify ourselves from earlier parts in the family line; in my case, I’m from the Ali Salah part. I remember a few years ago when I was at a wedding and my dad recognized the grooms sisters last name (she’s married, so the siblings don’t have the same last name). Next thing I knew, my dad was talking with the grooms brother-in-law about his family line and they were each recalling names from generations before. I saw them reach a name they both had in common and continue the list with the same names--turns out the groom's brother-in-law was from Mohsen-Salah line, so we’re related 5 generations back.
My family and I go to a Palestinian activism convention every year and I remember when I was in 6th grade I became really good friends with these two girls, Lemma and Shadin, who were cousins. It just happened that they had the same last name as I did, Saadeh, but they spell it with an -eh not -ah at the end. I didn’t think much of it at first, I figured it was like Jones where just because you have the same last name doesn’t mean you’re related. But curiosity took over my 12 year old self and I asked them if, by any chance, they knew their family line and surprisingly enough, they listed all 12 names. When they reached Salah their line became identical to mine, and that’s when I realized we were distant cousins.
Later as my dad was picking me up from the young youth program, I made him wait until Lemma or Shadin’s dad picked them up so they could meet. When Lemma’s dad came, my dad greeted him like old friends; they were hugging and obnoxiously talk-yelling. Once they were done, Lemma, Shadin and I explained to them our detective skills--how we said all of our names to find out if we were related. They looked at each other and started laughing. Turns out, my dad has been knowing Lemma’s dad since he was born and they’ve been in contact since. I think about this memory a lot, it represents how important each name is, and what the family line really means: relationships. I was in 6th grade when I made my first connection, and until this day my dad tells me stories about running into Saadah’s at the randomest places--in restaurants, on vacation, even at the mosque. So I can’t wait and can only imagine how many more people I’ll meet and find out I’m related to. I also realize how fortunate I am to meet someone with the same last name as me and, most of the time, be able to trace how far back we’re related and form relationships with them.
