Zaragoza student whose name means 'Electricity Costs a Packet' says rise in power prices is 'not her fault'

The 19-year-old's parents said when they had her christened, the penny did not drop – it was not until her schoolmates began to snigger and to touch her shoulder to switch her 'on' and 'off' that they put their heads in their hands.

Her first name is Luz, which translates as 'Light', but when referring to the power supply in Spanish it is this word that is normally used, rather than the directly-translated electricidad.

Luz's first surname, that of her father, is Cuesta, which translates as 'Costs' in the third person – although can also mean 'hill' or 'slope' – and her mother's surname, which is Luz's second one, is 'Mogollón', translating into a colloquial but non-sweary word describing a large quantity.

Effectively, any of Luz's siblings were automatically going to have to suffer surnames translating into 'Costs a Packet', given the Spanish tradition of children bearing their father's first surname followed by their mother's first – even reverting them, as some parents are now doing with their children as a nod to feminism – would still leave any of the Aragonese couple's children stuck with the second names of 'Mogollón Cuesta', or 'A Packet It Costs'.

Luz was named after the Virgen de la Luz ('Virgin of Light') church in Avilés, Asturias, where her parents married and they had her christened, and it is a perfectly valid girl's name in Spain, but her mum and dad did not consider that their daughter's DNI, or identity card, would end up reading 'Electricity Costs the Earth', or similar.

Luckily, Luz herself has always found her own name hilarious and joined in the joke whenever it crops up.

“On my first day at high school, when the teacher read out the register, he couldn't stop himself from bursting out laughing when he got to my name,” Luz says, laughing herself at the memory.

When she was around nine years old, a radio programme run by DJ Carlos Herrera asked listeners with strange names, or who knew of someone who had one, to call in.

Luz's sister did so, to comment on the family surname combination, but when Herrera cracked up laughing upon hearing Luz's name, their parents realised what they had done nine years ago.

Ever since then, Luz Cuesta Mogollón has been interviewed by numerous media, but her name and face have been appearing in the news more than ever lately with the historic rise in electricity prices seen over the last weekend.

Ironically, given that her ID card declares it costs a packet, Luz – who now studies languages at university – has been approached by utility companies to take part in their advertising campaigns.

“And by the way, the fact that electricity really does cost a packet at the moment is not my fault, so don't blame me!” Luz declares.