Like every Mexican citizen I have a two-word last name:
Ríos Mercado. First word comes from my father,
second from my mother, very simple. However, one of the first things that
I realized when I came into US is how difficult it was for people
to handle this. I ended up with very funny names. Therefore,
due to the circumstances, I was forced to either hyphenate it
(making it a long single word: Ríos-Mercado) or drop the
second word (making it just: Ríos), hoping that my mother
does not find out about this.
To make matters a little worse, my first name is
pronounced: Ro-her, in Spanish. Go figure.