By the time Giancarlo Cruz Michael Stanton was in junior high school, he had grown weary of classmates mocking him for his given name and of teachers and coaches mangling the pronunciation of it. His friend Enrique didn’t care for his own name, either.
Together they made a pact. They would go by Mike and Ricky.
“He came in one day,” said Stanton’s mother, Jacinta Garay, “and said: ‘Mom, I hate my name. Why did you name me that?’ And on and on.”
What Stanton didn’t know was that it could have been worse. His mother was going to name him Fidel.