Alarms go off. Doors slam. Parents yell. Mornings in a family of seven create so many challenges.

But amidst the chaos of five children getting ready, they also need to find their personal identities.

All trying to find their way at the same time in the same place are sophomores Alessandra, Abby, Ana, Andre and Joshua Puig: quintuplets.

“[I embrace] that I am different, and that we are not the same person,” Joshua said.

Besides sharing the same birthday, the siblings share many of the same hobbies and have stuck with them through their schooling career. Everyone is in the band except for Alessandra, who is in the orchestra. But, as they get further along in high school, they are coming to terms with the fact that in a few years they will have to go their separate ways.

“It’s difficult because you’ve grown up your whole life with them; you go to elementary school with them; you live with them,” Alessandra said.

Born first, Ana is the oldest of the quints. She said there are many challenges that come with growing up with siblings to begin with but those challenges are magnified when the siblings are born minutes apart.

Alhough the Puigs share many physical characteristics, how they think is immensely different. Abby said she is more of an emotional thinker than her brothers and sisters.

“I have ADD and I guess I just think differently from the rest of my siblings,” Abby said. “I am more inside my brain than thinking outside.”

How one thinks often leads to different aspirations in life, and the Puigs have different dreams. For example, Ana is working to be a doctor, but Alessandra wants to go into a more creative field like interior design, and she is planning to take cosmetology.

“I’m more organized than everybody else. I’m less academic, but more artistically inclined,” Alessandra said.

The Puigs take pride in their family, but do not ignore the fact that they are different human beings with different names and meanings.

“My name is Ana-Sophia which means ‘Grace and Wisdom,’”Ana said.

When their parents chose the quintuplet’s names, they picked ones which captured meaning that was close to them.

“My name means ‘Joy’,” Abby said. “I think that anybody who knows me can tell because I am always smiling.”

Though Abby radiates her name, that does not mean that is all she is. According to Beatrice Barbazzeni, Ph.D student in neuroscience, many times when children are told their name has meaning, they feel a need to live up to it.

“It’s not really directly describing ‘Oh, you’re so graceful! Oh, you’re so wise,’” Ana said. “It’s kind of everything that develops from those two words.”

The siblings know that they are their own person and have their own purpose in life.

“A lot of people think that they have to live up to their name,” Ana said. “I think it’s more like your name lives up to you.”

This story was originally published on Panther Press on October 3, 2024.