What do the World’s Loneliest Tree and I have in common?

My Steemit friend @camilonga nominated me to take a part in one funny challenge. All you have to do is explain your username, your real name and some other username you would like to have.

So, my name is Valeria. Initially, the idea of this name came to my mom when she was reading a book of one Soviet writer. There was a girl, a friend of the protagonist, called Valeria. It seemed like a nice name to my mom and so she told her friends that if she ever has a daughter, she will call her Valeria. However, it should be noted, that during the USSR it was quite an unusual name for girls. The most common names back then were Elena, Maria, Natasha and Tatiana. Therefore, when I was born my mom doubted whether it will be hard for me to live with a name like that. But her friends, right after they found out about my birth, send her a card which said: "Congratulations on the birth of Valeria!" Given that there is a superstition in Russia, which says if a child got a name, you better not change it. As a result, I was named Valeria, and I was the only girl with this name among my peers in school and the neighborhood we lived in. Now the situation has changed and there is a lot of girls called Valeria in Russia.

Can you recognize me on this old high school photo? :)

My username is teneresa. Many years ago, I started learning Italian and back then, I really loved how the word tenderness sounds - "tenerezza". It looked like a nice woman’s name for me! So when I first had to pick a username, this word came up, and I just thought of something similar. However, later on, there was another story related to my username. It turned out that teneré was a name of a tree. A lone acacia, the only tree within a radius of 400 km, which was once considered the most isolated tree on Earth. It grew up in the desert of the Sahara in the northeast of the Niger and served as a guide for caravan routes through the desert. In 1973, a drunken truck driver knocked it down.

As for my other username, I use teneresa almost everywhere. But sometimes I sign as Alisa Kuper, as a reference to the stage name of the famous singer :)

This challenge seemed very interesting to me! I nominate:
@sashawrites
@peliken

I would love to read your stories about your names and usernames!

Please, support me with upvotes and do not hesitate to leave a comment!

Best wishes,
Valeria