When I was a child, Bakra Eid in Karachi always came a day before everyone else celebrated. As Dawoodi Bohras, we follow the lunar calendar with precision—no guesswork, no sightings with telescopes or cloudy skies. Just clarity. Certainty. Our day of Eid would arrive, and I remember the rituals, the gatherings, the scent of fresh bakhoor wafting through the house, and of course, the goats tied outside waiting for their final day.

One year, my dad brought home a kassai—the man responsible for the zabah of our goat—and his name was Mahwiyah.

That name stunned me.

I was very young, but even then, the name Mahwiyah was so loaded. So strange. So heavy. All through Muharram, I’d hear the name spat out in every majlis with anger and grief, as a villain of history. And yet here he was, our butcher, smiling with his blood-stained apron and a name that seemed so far removed from warmth or celebration. Who named him? What were they thinking? Did they not know, or did they know and choose it anyway?

Fast forward to yesterday. I’m sitting in a tiny fishing town in southern Morocco—Mirleft—where the cliffs drop into the Atlantic and time slows down. We had lunch at a local restaurant and chatted with the owner, a young guy full of life and energy. His name? Yazid.

I paused. I confirmed it twice, thinking I’d misheard. Yazid. That Yazid. Another name dripping with history. Another name echoing centuries of pain. What parent looks at their child and says, “Let me name him Yazid”?

It’s fascinating, isn’t it? Names carry the weight of history, belief, identity, and yet sometimes they’re given as casually as a gift bag—unaware of what’s inside.

As we walked back from the restaurant, my thoughts wandered to the beach. To Hassan, the guy who runs the small seaside restaurant near our temporary home. He once told me something that stuck:
“There should be humanity before anything else.”

That line echoed louder yesterday. My eldest daughter must have sensed the discomfort on my face. She leaned in and whispered, “Remember Hassan’s words.”

Humanity before anything else.

Maybe that’s the bridge. Between names, between histories, between grief and grace. Maybe that’s the way to sit across from a Yazid or a Mahwiyah and see the person before the label. To hear their stories without the shadows of others who bore their names.

But still. Some names you never forget.