Sandy Ha
When I think about my name, I think about what a name represents at its most basic level. Why do we name things and why do we have names for ourselves? What do our names say about us, and more so, what do our names say *for us*? I was given one name by my parents when we lived on a different continent. After living in this one for a few years, I chose a completely different name for myself. I was six. The name I chose is the name I still go by today―Sandy. As a six year-old immigrant, this decision has often felt more like a reaction than expression, though it has a similar energy to a child naming one of their dolls. So perhaps it’s more expressive than I’ve given myself credit for. Decades later, I’ve gone back and forth about returning to my given name, my Korean name, as a way to reclaim identity and heritage and so forth. But I’ve not felt that to be an authentic expression of myself. This renaming/unnaming seemed more reactive than the decision the six year-old me made. What I realized is I don’t really have a desire to be called by my given name by everybody. In a way, it’s become a tender nickname that family, relatives, and few others beyond that know me by. Its utterance conveys a particular relationship I have with the ones who call me by it, and its written form is recognized only in Hangul.
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Linda Takano
"While Shay was easy to spell, this name would have its own challenges since it was also a common Irish surname. I could tell people were expecting a person who did not look like me. "
Jasmine Vu*
"It was not until high school that I became increasingly aware of my identity as an Asian American, which turned into resentment. Why did my parents have to sacrifice their names for survival?"
Renata Lumanau
"I was able to learn Mandarin from a young age, but since we lived outside Indonesia since I was 3 years old, I felt disconnected not only from my Indonesian culture, but even more so from my Chinese one."
LiLi Marjorie Pigott
"I was born somewhere in China to a family that left me at a police station in Guangdong Province with no name or even a note with my birthday."
Taslim Jaiyeola Adejare Dosunmu*
"A part of me wishes my name expressed more of my mixed heritage, though my sentiments about that have changed a lot over time depending on the social context I was in."
Evan 田辺 Captain*
"Much of my childhood and adolescence was shadowed by learning to hide that part of myself because that was easier than just existing in my own truth in a white community."
Cassie Whitebread*
"For me and my mother, this last name adds an extra sticky layer of tension to meeting people for the first time. 'Whitebread? But you’re not white.'"
Dany Srey-Snow
"It’s an invitation for people to really know the authentic me, just like my family. I share how it’s a reclamation practice and it’s been welcomed with openness."
Ashna Mediratta
"They had moved to the U.S. and were searching for a name that would be easy to pronounce with English letters and sounds, and would not be butchered by an American accent."
Ren Han
"As my gender identity began to differ and change, I gravitated towards my online handle 'Ren.' It was more gender neutral, an ambiguous in-between to all the different iterations of my name."
Jenn Ngeth*
"I remember the first time I heard my mother say my last name out loud. It was the first day of Headstart and just as easily as it slipped out of my mother’s mouth, it was too slippery for my teacher to pronounce."
Jane Wong
"She asked a random customer to name me my “American” name and loved how simple it sounded...I keep forgetting my Chinese name."
DeShawn Rivers*
"Growing up in Florida, I attended primarily black schools and classmates would often make jokes about my middle name by saying, 'That’s where the black is.'"
Jay Stoneking*
"Some days I wish I had, just to be more visible among my own community. Other days I feel grateful I don’t have to navigate racism the same way the rest of my family do."
Bonita Lee*
"It is fitting how this is the place of rebellion in China, as I was always rebelling against my own culture while trying to fit in when growing up in the United States."
Eric Chan 陳志宇 진지유*
"I must also remind myself that the folk arts I practice are traditionally performed and passed down anonymously, so we need not hold any of our names as sacred, precious, or permanent."
Carole Hsi Lin Hsiao 蕭席琳*
"All of these names are written in distinct ways to convey political, poetic, and sentimental meanings and all of them are often misspelled or miswritten."
Shin Yu Pai*
"In my early 20s, I traveled to Taiwan on a root-searching tour and upon coming back to the States, decided to reclaim my Taiwanese name, which I have used full-time since being 23."