Enrique Flores-Galbis: Hi. I'm Enrique Flores-Galbis. Actually, Enrique Flores-Galbis is the shortened version of my name. It is a hyphenated name that represents my father and my mother's family. My official given name is, and I hope you're sitting down ... Enrique Antonio María Flores Jenkins Galbis Rigol inaudible et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, the third. Catchy, isn't it?

You see, I was born in Havana, Cuba, where children are expected to lug around not only the names of their mother and father, but all four grandparents as well. You can imagine how it felt when I arrived in New England, where at the time, we were usually the only Latinos in school. I had to stand in front of my curious classmates, all smartly, efficiently named Jane, Sue, Tim, and Bob, to roll out that oversized name of mine.

One day, my third grade teacher, Mrs. Johnson, asked me to write my name on the board, and then she asked the class to count the number of syllables in my name. The class wise guy, Billy Taylor, the original Bart Simpson, yelled out from the back, "That's at least 144 syll-al-ables." Everyone laughed, and then Mrs. Johnson wrote, "Henry Flores" on the board, explaining that Henry is American for Enrique. She asked the class to count again the syllables. After a lot of mumbling and finger counting, they yelled as one, "Four!" So I became Henry Flores.

Not wanting to hurt Mrs. Johnson's feelings, I waited until I moved out of that town to change my name back to a seven syllable version, the short version, to Enrique Flores-Galbis.