Malagasy Names: OH DEAR!

This being the 5th week of school here, I have still not received an official attendance form for any of my classes. There is not a single computer at my school so everything is still typed out on a type writer, what a long and tedious process!So last week I went to the office sat down with the book for each class and hand wrote out the names of all 356 of my students! It took 3 hours because people have names a mile long here! All of my life, people have commented what a long name I HAVE: Whitney Michelle Swander. That doesn't hold a candle to the names here! Let me tell you my hand was tired when I finished!
After I finished the last class, I was literally dizzy from reading the tiny cursive print of all those r's, z, m's, and k's...and because it's hot and despite my best efforts to continually guzzle water here, I'm always a little dehydrated. lol. Then, Bonne explained to me, that each Malagasy name is a saying and tells about the order of birth, the state of the family at the time of birth, hopes and desires for the person, etc. It's a really cool part of the culture and kind of hard for Westerners to wrap their minds around completely. Of course “vazaha” names have also infiltrated the culture here.
As an outsider looking in, there seems to be no rhyme or reason to how names are put together and there aren't “family” names like we have. I explained that my name is Whitney Michelle Swander, my parents choose the first two, but the final name is passed from the father. Women traditionally take their husbands last name when they marry, so my mother is Jan Swander. But some times both spouses use their own last names and they themselves or just their kids have hyphenated names...so simple. Here every family member has a completely unique “nom” (last name) and some have 1-5 “prenom” (first and middle, but that really isn't how they are classified here), and then some people just have a “nom.” Here is a sampling of students namesL
RANOMENJANAHARY Sitrakinianiania Jean Zuetienne (he goes by Sitrika)
RAZANAKOTO Sendraviavaka Pirisoa Fandeferana (she goes by Miavaka)
RAFARA Malala Fetra Nemenjanohary Yvette (goes by Nekena)
RAKOTOMAMPIONONJANAHARX Romuladon Jean Patri (he goes by Romulado)
RANDRIANA Goulam Aly Amine Florida Gildas (he goes by Gildas)
KOTO Rufin Robert (he goes by Ruphin)
Rahelisoa Olive (he goes by Alive)
ANISOA Miaraly (she goes by Anisoa)
VELONJARA (that's it)
Names are basically like “where's waldo!” and honestly a little daugnting to me. And proununciation, even with my best effort I still suck. I'm trying so hard, but the Malagasy names just have so many consonants or repeated sounds...but I am getting better. I love the student's with “French” names: Angela, Synthia, Jean Serge...I can do that! Some names are just amazingly creative and I wish we had parent conferences to ask the inspirations of names like: Baldy, Bienvenue, Boga, Bosco, Frankenstinos, Jhons, La LaHonore, Sebastien, Willy, T Van Lendel, Vanilla, Zoachin, Zozo, just to name a few...
Here are some of the names I'm still struggling with pronouncing, there is emphasis in unnatural places too: Nambinina, Tsiory, Miasason, Mihevitsoa (this is like 4 out of 150 names I suck at saying. but I'm trying so hard. I practice before class, honestly!)