"Huh?"

So that's never the way to respond to someone teaching you how to properly pronounce their name, but yeah, I definitely let that fly out of my mouth and to this day, the lesson I learned from that exchange still resonates with me. At the time I was an Undergrad at Vanderbilt University (Vandy, All Hail!) living the highlife and meeting new people on a daily basis. I vividly remember walking through campus when I recognized a young lady that I knew standing in front of one of the dorms with a few people I'd yet to meet. Being my selectively social self, I stopped to chat. The first new person I met was a young lady named Adaugo, a beautiful Igbo name to which I replied, "Huh?" As soon as the twisted face and sound came out, I recoiled in embarrassment, thinking, "Did I really just do that?" Her face said it all. She was not interested in furthering the conversation, but she was polite enough to always greet me whenever we crossed paths on campus.

It's the sort of first impression that puts the full measure of your cultural insensitivity and lack of cultural competence on display. I can only imagine what she thought of me in those moments. I can only imagine how many times Adaugo suffered through people treating her name like a hurdle they were forced to jump over, or an unwarranted inconvenience delivered to them. We later got the opportunity to get to know each other through mutual friends and community involvement on campus. I won't say we became friends, but thankfully she hadn't completely written me off after our first meeting and we both had the benefit of being friendly with one another. Lord knows at that age I could hold a grudge so well that I'd use my feet to type a paper if it occupied both hands rather than letting it go, so this was a greater lesson learned than I originally grasped. She'd forgiven me in a sense, but I doubt she's forgotten; I never will forget. I still feel guilt when I replay the exchange in my mind.

My name, ubiquitous and euro-centric, hasn't inconvenienced much anyone. As a matter of fact, I've even shortened it to "Alex" for the sake of recall and to avoid misspellings/mispronunciations. When speaking with a native Spanish speaker, especially at work, I introduce myself as "Alejandra," a close-enough equivalent to Alexandria. When I went to college, got out of my comfort zone and met people who literally came from worlds away from my own, I became keenly aware of my programming. I'd attended a predominantly black high school where my graduating class was less than 70 people. Everyone knew everyone and their parents and siblings. I knew most people's middle names and actually was addressed by my own. I'd had what I assumed was the good fortune of having easy to pronounce names, even down to my surname and I felt proud of that. I'd later come to realize that these names I'd dismissed as "difficult" hold value and the pride of their parents, their ancestors and even their cultures.

Names aren't meant to be easy; they are representative of a person's spirit, their cultural heritage, or even their unique, birth story. Our parents choose our names to walk before us and carry the love and consideration they felt when they recognized our spirits. Maybe your mom chose your name one day on her drive home from work after hearing someone sing it in the lyrics of what would become her favorite song. In the case of Isaiah Thomas, his dad chose his name like a true, self-fulfilling prophecy after a Basketball great he admired and felt carried the qualities he hoped to witness in his son. In the case of my partner, his mom created his name as a representation of both her name and his father's; a beautiful mosaic that grants both parents the pride of saying this is equal parts your and my own blessing. There are so many people named after a person in a sacred text like the Quran (Muhammad) or Bible (Ester) or a historical figure that is highly regarded in a community (Huey). Unfortunately, there are many names with negative connotations due to someone else's documented (whether fact or fiction) account of this person's character flaws. Just as a rule of thumb, I know that naming a child "Adolf" would be deviant behavior in my community, but that isn't to detract from the value and the beauty it invokes in other communities. I know of a Rodney, Gregory, David, Charles, and Michael who favored their own names when naming their baby girls Rodneisha, Gremesha, Davida, Charlotte, and Michaela. My mom named her younger brother and takes so much pride when this fact is acknowledged. Since he doesn't have a son of his own, his siblings have blessed their own sons with his middle name. I have cousins who have woven together names from many nations and created something unique to my ears. This is usually met with some resistance by the older generations in our family, but when you further examine names, you realize that they were all "made-up." Everything that we now refer to as traditional or a part of the cultural "norm" was once a new, maybe even radical, idea. At some point in history, someone decided that this letter following that one to form a series of sounds is a worthy combination to represent their child's spirit.

Across cultures, places and times, we have used names as tales that preserve pieces of our history, invoke pride, and remind the bearer of who, what, and/or where they come from. Names can be like artifacts on display for a family in the same way that an ancient mortar and pestle are in a museum. It can jog a person's memory of a distance relative or important figure whenever spoken or heard. When a parent shares their name with a child, they share a legacy. In my studies of anthropology and sociology, I’ve learned that this is a huge part of Latin communities. Across a multitude of cultures, many names actually translate to “daughter/son of ______” and many families continue the formal tradition of giving a child several surnames as to preserve their familial ties to both their mother’s and father’s respective families, later adding that of a spouse.

Many cultures continue to assign children names that reflect distinct, physical traits or personality traits even evident from gestation. Native and indigenous peoples are the most prominent examples in North America. In a standup set by Somali comedienne Fatima Dhowre, she shares accounts of her family's harsh but hilarious nicknames for all of its women and girls. Her family nickname is the Somali translation of "man carrying heavy bags." Her sister was a bit worse off than her, commonly referred to as "long butt." It brings to mind, the adage, "it's not what they call you, it's what you answer to." I'd definitely petition for a do-over in the case of her sister, but I can't say that I was spared from this brand of "tough love" by my family in my youth. My family found creative ways to do what they sincerely believed would help us all to grow more secure (the irony) and have thicker skin.

What's in a name? I've come to believe that the act of speaking someone's name is a form of blessing/endowment. Each time someone calls out to a person named Olatunde, they are proclaiming "salvation has returned" or "wealth has come again" or "joy returns" depending on your translation. When Olatunde answers to this name, he accepts this blessing. I first learned this common Yoruba name in college in its shortened form, "Ola." I saw his name written in full and asked for the proper pronunciation. He instead asked me to give it a try. Without overthinking it and using the new found context of how other Nigerian names are pronounced, I got it right, much to his surprise. He then shared the meaning of his name and I immediately gained a greater appreciation for how evident the meaning was in his bright, playful personality. Ever so often I referred to him by his full, first name as I reminded myself to consciously dispel and undo my years of faulty programming about "difficult names."

There can’t be a proper discussion on the significance of honoring someone’s name without mentioning a candid interview where Uzoamaka Nwanneka Aduba, an Emmy winning actress best known for her portrayal of “Crazy Eyes” in the cast of Orange is the New Black, shared her experiences with her name. When she was announced as the winner of the 2015 Emmy award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role, one of the announcers prefaced the acknowledgement with "and the Emmy goes to the girl who I asked how to pronounce her name." It was a fleeting moment, but I can imagine it was one that could have easily summoned memories of a lifetime of name calling and fable attempts to bury and show disregard for the beauty in each syllable of her name.

In an interview with Sway on SiriusXM, she spoke about her early experiences as a child, suffering through mispronunciations and taunting by peers and teachers alike. She recounts a time as a young girl when she asked her mother to begin referring to her as “Zoey” instead of Uzoamaka, a request that was met with the only plausible response that a mother can eloquently muster.

“If they can learn to say Tchaikovsky and Dostoevsky, then they can learn to say Uzoamaka.”

Thanks for reading.

#difficultnames #blessings #culturalcompetence #identity #beauty