What's in a Name?

It seems obvious when you think about it. Your name is your identity. It’s how you are known to the world and often carries with it a lineage or history, a story of how your name came to be, and childhood memories perhaps of learning how to say and write, in wonky crooked childish writing, your name for the first time.

But when your name comes from a culture and background that isn’t the dominant culture you are surrounded by, it can mean different things. Most commonly, it can mean people getting your name wrong - wrong pronunciations, wrong spelling, and wrong emphasis. And that can lead to a whole host of internalised reactions.

It started young - the first time I heard someone completely butcher my name was a teacher in school - a male teacher whom, I, as a shy, people-pleasing, well-behaved child, found intimidating. I never corrected him and in my mind, it never occurred to me to call him out and make it clear that he got it wrong, and how to say it correctly. Instead I let it go, because ‘good girls’ didn’t make a scene or cause trouble, and ‘good girls’ did what they were told. I lived with this teacher getting my name humiliatingly wrong for the rest of the school year, and later, when I was a few years older and in his class again, we went through the same rigmarole a second time. I hadn’t at this point really come into myself and understood who I was, or what my boundaries were, or how to make people listen. So I accepted it when I shouldn’t have.

Unfortunately, this continued into my working life. Not everyone was getting my name wrong - in fact, most people got it right - mainly because they listened when I introduced myself and remembered how to say it. But once I joined the working world as an adult, still the same shy, people-pleaser I had always been, there were still people who just could not seem to listen or wrap their heads around a straightforward, three syllable name, that was spelt how it was said. It amazed me multiple times that people in roles far senior to me, demonstrated repeatedly their inability to pay attention so often.

Getting a ‘different’ name wrong verbally might be one thing - getting it wrong in writing when the person in question has literally written it out for you clearly and signed off their emails with the name they want to be called, only for you to use their surname (I can only wonder why), get the spelling wrong (see above, it’s been written for you), or repeatedly use another random name altogether, smacked of the disrespect and erasure that in my naivety, I had thought adults would be well past. Add to this, the insistence of some people in abbreviating my name without my permission or addressing me with a nickname I didn’t approve of, all of which was done, by their own admission, for their ease and convenience. As though their preference of what to call me was of greater importance than how I would like to be addressed. Names indicate identities - they do not exist at the pleasure of others moulding you to fit around their wants.

It has only been in the last few years that I have become unapologetic and loud about my name. Getting it right means something. And considering that the people who get my name wrong all share the same demographic (think race and gender), it has really made me far less tolerant of that demographic and their ‘mistakes.’ I know from personal experience having pronounced someone’s name wrong accidentally and having immediately apologised and corrected myself, (that person being of the same group that consistently gets my name wrong), I was not given any grace or leeway for my mistake. Instead the acerbic and cutting response was swift and sharp enough to slice stone. Thankfully nowadays I am firm believer in responding with the same energy I receive so these interactions tend to end differently now.

My name deserves respect and acknowledgement. If you are not able to take the time to learn and pronounce my name correctly, please do not expect me to tolerate your dismissal and disrespect of me. I will call you out, however uncomfortable it makes you feel.