Hmm, thanks for touching on this uncommon topic Tee Dee. I floated to your post while I was reading someone else's posts for healing from trauma as a woman. Being a marketing graduate, I could give you the business perspective of names based on consumer behaviour. It's usual for cultures to have stereotypes and tend to accept their own types of names. Even though our given names carry weight, ancestral memories of hundreds of years of stories and unique emotions (the novel: roots), foreigners wouldn't always immediately identify the feelings associated with the original names. Once you make friends in a new culture and tell them who you are "according to their map of the world", and they accept it, you have a stage and a mike. Then, you can slowly unravel your story and real name. In other words, our odd-sounding real names carry value to foreigners when we improve their lives somehow and they feel it. An in interesting point is that what can't be discussed in 1 culture can be approached openly in another, this may ease a name-changer's burden!
I really like your name (Nayeem), it sounds kind of peaceful in my mind.
Thank you very much for sharing your marketing perspective. I really like it.
"our odd-sounding real names carry value to foreigners when we improve their lives somehow and they feel it" -> this is a very cool insight.
I notice people who are open-minded and familiar with other cultures will often ask me how to pronounce my name correctly, and do not mind trying a few times to get it right.
Some others will just gloss over it and go with whatever. But in the (rare!) case where we become closer, their interest in my culture becomes a lot more intense!
" what can't be discussed in 1 culture can be approached openly in another" >> great observation. Honestly I would never get to discuss my name with my Vietnamese friends (no one cares lol). But my foreign friends are always super into my cultural insights.
A great read, and I feel the pain and weight you carry. Thank you for sharing this well-captured raw, deep, visceral truth and introspective takes! Names are so personal, and meaningful too; and attached to international stories.
When I came to North America, I saw a lot of Chinese changed their names, I mean first name. It was a conflicting choice for me: While considering maybe I should change mine so to make it easier for people to pronounce, I also want to keep my name. So, I did some observations and little surveys around, and plus, injected a small dose of my sense of humor to help it. Just to see how it went. It turned out that most people didn’t have much trouble with pronunciation, and thankfully, a few people even suggested helpful ways to keep my name as it is. Of course, I changed my last name after I got married, but as a hyphenated one, rather than a complete substitution.
Talking about my experience, I’m grateful to my parents for my name, and to people who helped keep it.
Thank you so much for sharing your personal story. It makes me really happy to hear how others relate to my experience. It's such an honor when someone read my essay with such care and attention!
I admire your courage to seek another path than the one everyone else was following. I love the idea of the survey, with humor to boost!
I wish this was talked more about when I was younger, so I had more confidence to stay true to my roots.
But we can talk about it now. And I notice that the younger generation is much more comfortable with diversity. The kids in college I meet nowadays don't usually consider changing their names anymore. Many have a nickname that's short for their real name to use with friends, but they show their foreign identity with pride. I can't imagine myself being like that when I was their age.
My pleasure! I always enjoy excellent writing.😊 Thank you for such a kind and thoughtful follow-up! I keenly cherish how you stay true to your roots and share the same value, which is why I did what I could at the time, and then revealed to you (not just words, but concrete actions). You communicated this topic rarely in words yet broadly in mind. Great job!
Tee Dee, l loved your post, very much. As an African it deeply resonates. Thought provocking and reminds of the decoloniality systems and theories. The whole shame of who you are, trying to change into an acceptable identity. Thats a heavier burden.
Shrinking to fit in, and a whole lot of identity wounds.
This part got me:
"My family has always called me by my nickname Bé, which came about because I was small as a child"
I was a small child too from birth they called me "Doli" meaning doll.
I’m so glad this resonates with you, Princess. I tried to stay away from the political aspect of it, but you are right, colonialism is the shadow we all know of, behind this story.
I invite you to share more of your own name story, when you’re ready. I’ll be glad to learn more about it, you have such an interesting name.
I resonate a lot with this piece. I love being called imi but that's not my full name. I remember the day “imi” was born. I was at the beginning of my masters and talking to my friends about how difficult for people to remember my name, how forgettable i’ll be because my name was difficult to pronouncein English. Since then I've been imi. But I still found that Harvard study interesting. All these work forces are screaming equality and inclusion but in the end look at the facts. Thanks for sharing these with us. And on another note, I loved how you mentioned how the real name comes with a power. The same idea is conveyed by Ursula K. Le Guin by one of her series. She is my favourite author. I really enjoyed this piece.
"The day imi was born" — I love that you named it that way. Because it was a birth, in a sense. A strategic one. You made yourself pronounceable in a room that wasn't built for your name.
That's what makes the Harvard study sting the way it does. There's no ambiguity in data. The gap between what institutions perform and what they actually do — it's there and it's visible. You can't explain it away.
What I love about with your story is that you carry both. You know imi, and you know the full name underneath. The power doesn't disappear just because the room wasn't ready for it.
I haven't read Le Guin but she is on my list now. I'm always looking for new female authors to read.
Perhaps my ancestors were right — our real name does hold the door to our soul.” That line is the heart of the whole piece. The moment of hearing your name spoken with love and feeling your body respond — that’s not sentiment, that’s identity finding its ground. Beautiful and brave writing. 🙏🏽
I am glad it resonated with you. Yes that’s a moment I will never forget. That’s why I realized the right name spoken by the right person means everything.
the body knows the difference between a name that fits and one that doesn't long before the mind finds words for it. that specific startle when someone calls you by a name that isn't quite yours... that's not psychological. that's tissue. that's the nervous system registering a small wrongness it can't explain.
"a breath held back for years just got released"... that's what belonging actually feels like in the body. not warmth or safety as concepts. a literal exhale.
What a beautiful, deeply moving piece. Thank you so much for writing this, and for sharing it. It is incredibly powerful to read about your journey, the real complexities you faced, and the difficulty of navigating all of it.
But more than anything, I’m just so happy for you. When you wrote about standing your ground against the Dutch tradition to keep your last name—that moment said it all. It’s so beautiful that you have people in your life now who love you, who hold you tight when you need it, and who want to know all of you—without you ever having to change or make yourself more digestible for them. I’m sending you so much love and goodwill. You deserve to occupy your full space.
This message warmed my heart. Thank you — genuinely ♥️.
The last name thing was a small battle in the grand scheme of everything. But you’re right that it mattered. Because of what it meant: that I didn’t have to erase the parts of me that were harder to explain. That I could just be true to my roots.
I’m still learning what it feels like to take up that space without apologizing for it. But messages like yours remind me why it’s worth writing about. So thank you for reading, and for sending this love.❤️
What a beautiful and thoughtful piece. As someone who also carries a name tied to roots, family, and identity, I felt every word. “Let the foreigners learn to pronounce our names” is such a powerful statement of self-worth and belonging. Thank you for sharing this reflection. 🤍
I find your name very beautiful, even though I know almost nothing about your culture. It just sounds very gentle and poetic to me. I hope you hear this more often!
That is such a beautiful thing to hear Tee Dee. Thank you. 🤍 My name is Arabic, and it means the burning red color of the lips. It carries a piece of my heritage with it, so your words touched me more than you know.
And honestly, I grew to love my name when I became a teenager. Before that, I used to ask my mother why she hadn't named me Cinderella instead. 😂 Can you imagine? Thankfully, she was much wiser than I was. Thank you for seeing the poetry in my name. 🌹
Ahaha I know exactly what you mean. I will always remember this movie called “Ladybird”. It shows so well the relationship between ourselves, our names and our parents.
I really love the meaning of your name. I think it fits you well. Thank you for sharing.
My dad changed his last name when he immigrated to the US. I’m not sure of the my had to do with not wanting to stand out. Names are so important. Thanks for this beautiful post 🤓🫶🏻
Thanks for sharing your dad’s story! Where is he from?
I guess that’s not uncommon among immigrants. It looks like a choice but a lot of times it’s about survival and a trade for better future. It’s sad that there so many biases and we have to make such a difficult decision to stay true to our roots or not, and how much.
He was born in Indonesia. It was a German name (although the family had naturalized Dutch) I’m not sure why to this day it remains a mystery. He never told me why.
There is such a precise ache in the way you describe hearing your own name like a body finally being let back into the room. What you’re really naming is how “fitting in” quietly taught you to live a few inches away from your own soul, and how letting others learn your real name is your first act of coming home to yourself.
What a powerful way to describe what it feels like to change identities through our names. I have two names, and the weight they carried was so big, one represented my dad’s family for generations, the other my mom’s. I didn’t like them for long, until I healed what both generations’ wounds were reflected in me.
Two names carrying two families' worth of wounds — that's a different kind of weight than mine, but I recognize the structure of it. The name as a mirror for what hasn't been healed yet. I'm glad you stayed with them long enough to get to the other side.
It's not only foreigners — plenty of people change their names who were born right where they live. But yes, the pressure to make yourself easier to pronounce is real, and older than most of us realize. Glad it opened something up :)
Hmm, thanks for touching on this uncommon topic Tee Dee. I floated to your post while I was reading someone else's posts for healing from trauma as a woman. Being a marketing graduate, I could give you the business perspective of names based on consumer behaviour. It's usual for cultures to have stereotypes and tend to accept their own types of names. Even though our given names carry weight, ancestral memories of hundreds of years of stories and unique emotions (the novel: roots), foreigners wouldn't always immediately identify the feelings associated with the original names. Once you make friends in a new culture and tell them who you are "according to their map of the world", and they accept it, you have a stage and a mike. Then, you can slowly unravel your story and real name. In other words, our odd-sounding real names carry value to foreigners when we improve their lives somehow and they feel it. An in interesting point is that what can't be discussed in 1 culture can be approached openly in another, this may ease a name-changer's burden!
Hi Nayeem! Welcome!
I really like your name (Nayeem), it sounds kind of peaceful in my mind.
Thank you very much for sharing your marketing perspective. I really like it.
"our odd-sounding real names carry value to foreigners when we improve their lives somehow and they feel it" -> this is a very cool insight.
I notice people who are open-minded and familiar with other cultures will often ask me how to pronounce my name correctly, and do not mind trying a few times to get it right.
Some others will just gloss over it and go with whatever. But in the (rare!) case where we become closer, their interest in my culture becomes a lot more intense!
" what can't be discussed in 1 culture can be approached openly in another" >> great observation. Honestly I would never get to discuss my name with my Vietnamese friends (no one cares lol). But my foreign friends are always super into my cultural insights.
A great read, and I feel the pain and weight you carry. Thank you for sharing this well-captured raw, deep, visceral truth and introspective takes! Names are so personal, and meaningful too; and attached to international stories.
When I came to North America, I saw a lot of Chinese changed their names, I mean first name. It was a conflicting choice for me: While considering maybe I should change mine so to make it easier for people to pronounce, I also want to keep my name. So, I did some observations and little surveys around, and plus, injected a small dose of my sense of humor to help it. Just to see how it went. It turned out that most people didn’t have much trouble with pronunciation, and thankfully, a few people even suggested helpful ways to keep my name as it is. Of course, I changed my last name after I got married, but as a hyphenated one, rather than a complete substitution.
Talking about my experience, I’m grateful to my parents for my name, and to people who helped keep it.
Thank you so much for sharing your personal story. It makes me really happy to hear how others relate to my experience. It's such an honor when someone read my essay with such care and attention!
I admire your courage to seek another path than the one everyone else was following. I love the idea of the survey, with humor to boost!
I wish this was talked more about when I was younger, so I had more confidence to stay true to my roots.
But we can talk about it now. And I notice that the younger generation is much more comfortable with diversity. The kids in college I meet nowadays don't usually consider changing their names anymore. Many have a nickname that's short for their real name to use with friends, but they show their foreign identity with pride. I can't imagine myself being like that when I was their age.
My pleasure! I always enjoy excellent writing.😊 Thank you for such a kind and thoughtful follow-up! I keenly cherish how you stay true to your roots and share the same value, which is why I did what I could at the time, and then revealed to you (not just words, but concrete actions). You communicated this topic rarely in words yet broadly in mind. Great job!
Thank you!
Tee Dee, l loved your post, very much. As an African it deeply resonates. Thought provocking and reminds of the decoloniality systems and theories. The whole shame of who you are, trying to change into an acceptable identity. Thats a heavier burden.
Shrinking to fit in, and a whole lot of identity wounds.
This part got me:
"My family has always called me by my nickname Bé, which came about because I was small as a child"
I was a small child too from birth they called me "Doli" meaning doll.
I could go on. But, thank you for sharing this .
I’m so glad this resonates with you, Princess. I tried to stay away from the political aspect of it, but you are right, colonialism is the shadow we all know of, behind this story.
I invite you to share more of your own name story, when you’re ready. I’ll be glad to learn more about it, you have such an interesting name.
From a small child to another 🫶
Tee Dee, thank you. "From a small child to another" is everything.
You saw me. Doli felt that.
More soon, when I’m ready 🫶
I resonate a lot with this piece. I love being called imi but that's not my full name. I remember the day “imi” was born. I was at the beginning of my masters and talking to my friends about how difficult for people to remember my name, how forgettable i’ll be because my name was difficult to pronouncein English. Since then I've been imi. But I still found that Harvard study interesting. All these work forces are screaming equality and inclusion but in the end look at the facts. Thanks for sharing these with us. And on another note, I loved how you mentioned how the real name comes with a power. The same idea is conveyed by Ursula K. Le Guin by one of her series. She is my favourite author. I really enjoyed this piece.
Thank you for bringing yourself to this piece.
"The day imi was born" — I love that you named it that way. Because it was a birth, in a sense. A strategic one. You made yourself pronounceable in a room that wasn't built for your name.
That's what makes the Harvard study sting the way it does. There's no ambiguity in data. The gap between what institutions perform and what they actually do — it's there and it's visible. You can't explain it away.
What I love about with your story is that you carry both. You know imi, and you know the full name underneath. The power doesn't disappear just because the room wasn't ready for it.
I haven't read Le Guin but she is on my list now. I'm always looking for new female authors to read.
Perhaps my ancestors were right — our real name does hold the door to our soul.” That line is the heart of the whole piece. The moment of hearing your name spoken with love and feeling your body respond — that’s not sentiment, that’s identity finding its ground. Beautiful and brave writing. 🙏🏽
I am glad it resonated with you. Yes that’s a moment I will never forget. That’s why I realized the right name spoken by the right person means everything.
the body knows the difference between a name that fits and one that doesn't long before the mind finds words for it. that specific startle when someone calls you by a name that isn't quite yours... that's not psychological. that's tissue. that's the nervous system registering a small wrongness it can't explain.
"a breath held back for years just got released"... that's what belonging actually feels like in the body. not warmth or safety as concepts. a literal exhale.
You know it when you know it. Thank you.
You’re welcome :) I go by my middle name too, and it’s a significant and long story of why/how I got here.
I would love to learn more about it!
Maybe I will write an article about it… it has some fun twists and turns…
Would love to read it!
What a beautiful, deeply moving piece. Thank you so much for writing this, and for sharing it. It is incredibly powerful to read about your journey, the real complexities you faced, and the difficulty of navigating all of it.
But more than anything, I’m just so happy for you. When you wrote about standing your ground against the Dutch tradition to keep your last name—that moment said it all. It’s so beautiful that you have people in your life now who love you, who hold you tight when you need it, and who want to know all of you—without you ever having to change or make yourself more digestible for them. I’m sending you so much love and goodwill. You deserve to occupy your full space.
This message warmed my heart. Thank you — genuinely ♥️.
The last name thing was a small battle in the grand scheme of everything. But you’re right that it mattered. Because of what it meant: that I didn’t have to erase the parts of me that were harder to explain. That I could just be true to my roots.
I’m still learning what it feels like to take up that space without apologizing for it. But messages like yours remind me why it’s worth writing about. So thank you for reading, and for sending this love.❤️
What a beautiful and thoughtful piece. As someone who also carries a name tied to roots, family, and identity, I felt every word. “Let the foreigners learn to pronounce our names” is such a powerful statement of self-worth and belonging. Thank you for sharing this reflection. 🤍
I find your name very beautiful, even though I know almost nothing about your culture. It just sounds very gentle and poetic to me. I hope you hear this more often!
That is such a beautiful thing to hear Tee Dee. Thank you. 🤍 My name is Arabic, and it means the burning red color of the lips. It carries a piece of my heritage with it, so your words touched me more than you know.
And honestly, I grew to love my name when I became a teenager. Before that, I used to ask my mother why she hadn't named me Cinderella instead. 😂 Can you imagine? Thankfully, she was much wiser than I was. Thank you for seeing the poetry in my name. 🌹
Ahaha I know exactly what you mean. I will always remember this movie called “Ladybird”. It shows so well the relationship between ourselves, our names and our parents.
I really love the meaning of your name. I think it fits you well. Thank you for sharing.
I know LadyBird, and you're absolutely right. 🤍 Thank you for your kind words, they truly touched me. 🌹❤️
My dad changed his last name when he immigrated to the US. I’m not sure of the my had to do with not wanting to stand out. Names are so important. Thanks for this beautiful post 🤓🫶🏻
Thanks for sharing your dad’s story! Where is he from?
I guess that’s not uncommon among immigrants. It looks like a choice but a lot of times it’s about survival and a trade for better future. It’s sad that there so many biases and we have to make such a difficult decision to stay true to our roots or not, and how much.
He was born in Indonesia. It was a German name (although the family had naturalized Dutch) I’m not sure why to this day it remains a mystery. He never told me why.
Oh it would be really interesting to know why! But I can imagine i may be an unpleasant topic or him.
🤓💫
Not sure….i might have just been that he wanted a “fresh start” after the war 💫
Ahh I see. That makes sense.
There is such a precise ache in the way you describe hearing your own name like a body finally being let back into the room. What you’re really naming is how “fitting in” quietly taught you to live a few inches away from your own soul, and how letting others learn your real name is your first act of coming home to yourself.
"A few inches away from your own soul"
That's exactly what it was. And you're right that letting others learn the name is the first act, not the last.
Thank you for putting words to the thing I was circling.
What a powerful way to describe what it feels like to change identities through our names. I have two names, and the weight they carried was so big, one represented my dad’s family for generations, the other my mom’s. I didn’t like them for long, until I healed what both generations’ wounds were reflected in me.
Hi Silvia, glad you are here!
Two names carrying two families' worth of wounds — that's a different kind of weight than mine, but I recognize the structure of it. The name as a mirror for what hasn't been healed yet. I'm glad you stayed with them long enough to get to the other side.
Interesting article. This helps me understand any some foreigners change their names.
It's not only foreigners — plenty of people change their names who were born right where they live. But yes, the pressure to make yourself easier to pronounce is real, and older than most of us realize. Glad it opened something up :)