Annette Bay Pimentel: My name is Annette Bay Pimentel. I was born with the beautiful and simple last name Bay. When I married, I added the beautiful and more complicated last name Pimentel. Pimentel is a Portuguese name, and my husband's family comes from the Azores Islands. My husband's great-grandfather José Pimentel immigrated to Boston, Massachusetts in the middle of the 1800s at a time when there was strong feeling against immigrants. So Grandpa José changed his name to Joseph P. Jones.

I almost became Annette Bay Jones, but then Grandpa José went west to California during the gold rush. In California, he was surrounded by people from all over the world. He realized that he did not have to give up who he was to be American. So he took back his family name and we've been Pimentels ever since.

The easiest way to remember how to pronounce the name is to think of the phrase, kiss and tell. Replace kiss with Pim and you've got it. Kiss and tell. Pimentel.