The Name Game

To the children of immigrants, with a “difficult” name: Your parents, your grandparents, and your ancestors did not immigrate for you to pronounce your own name incorrectly, just to make other people feel comfortable. Let that name feel foreign in their mouth. Let them roll it around until it becomes a part of their language too. When your ancestors immigrated they learned a whole new language, so everyone else should at least be capable of learning a small piece of yours. Your name carries with it a culture, a history, and the hardships of your ancestors. Don’t let people stomp all over it because they can’t take two minutes of their time to learn how to pronounce it correctly. Your parents, your grandparents, and your ancestors did not immigrate across the world just for you to mispronounce your own name so someone else can feel comfortable. 

This even applies to those without “foreign” names, maybe just a name that has been deemed “difficult” by those who feel threatened by anything different or unusual to them. Now with the relevance and strength of the Black Lives Matter movement reaching new heights, it is more important than ever that we realize the importance of name. So often these days people are reduced to just a name, to just an Instagram post that someone took two seconds to share to their story without bothering to do much else. A name they may read a hundred times without actually realizing that the name they took a second to gloss over is someone’s whole life. That name is fifteen years, thirty years, fifty years, worth of life, yet some people may not ever speak that name out loud or read their story. Those names are people. People whose lives had meaning, people who were forced to leave behind loved ones, people who are worth more than just two seconds, people who are people, which should be enough. An entire life now reduced to just a name to so many people, and yet some can’t even be bothered to acknowledge these names for more than a second of their time to save face, or acknowledge them appropriately at that. Of course the #SayHerName movement is much deeper than simply saying a name out loud and calling it a day of “activism.” From my understanding there are two facets: one being that we must raise awareness for Black women who are victims of police brutality and racist violence through saying their names in the media, as they are often underrepresented and overlooked, and the other being that we must individually say these women’s names out loud and have important conversations, because as Kimberlé Crenshaw, one of the founders of the AAPF, said “If you say the name, you’re prompted to learn the story, and if you know the story, then you have a broader sense of all the ways that Black bodies are made vulnerable to police violence.” I’m sure you reading right now, already know this and are aware of the Say Her Name movement but it feels important to reiterate its meaning as it really proves just how much weight a name can hold. 

 I myself have maybe one of the whitest names ever, Samantha. It’s so simple a 4 year old could probably sound it out, so let’s just say I’ve never really had to deal with a substitute teacher butchering my name, like ever. That in itself is a privilege, more than you would really think. For that, I can’t really speak on the issue from a first person experience much, because I could never know the hardships that others go through with their first names. People like my mother’s side of the family, some who have chosen new English names to replace their Vietnamese ones. I have witnessed my mom explaining how to pronounce her first name to PTA moms who (usually) try their best to fit the name in their mouth, but I can tell it’s always said with a bit of hesitation as if they’d rather avoid saying the name altogether, brushing the encounter off with a “Good to see you!” or a “Hey—ma’am”. 

I am half-Vietnamese, and most of my culture has been washed away from me. I can’t eat spicy food, I have stick-straight brown hair, I can barely speak the language, and I look almost nothing like my mom’s side of the family. When I was younger, and I was more immersed in the culture since my grandmother would babysit me most days. I could sing the Vietnamese songs, eat all the food, and I even looked more Asian, but as I grew up I slowly lost all of that, and now I just feel like anybody else. I think I miss it. The only things really connecting me to my culture now is going to my grandmother’s house on Sunday’s (which is rare now with the quarantine), celebrating the Lunar New Year and other cultural holidays in a very Americanized way, the rare occasion when my mom and I go out to eat Asian food together (which makes my heart feel a bit warmer), and my middle name.

My middle name is Mỹ Anh, which was given to me by my grandfather. From my understanding, it means “American.” (Any Vietnamese people are welcome to educate me in the comments if you’d like.) See, I’m so disconnected from my culture that 1) the Vietnamese part of my name is just a label for the other half of my identity and 2) I’m not entirely sure what it even means. Still, it’s all I really have to latch onto of my culture, so it feels important either way. I don’t think I’m ashamed of it in anyway, but I do feel the way my heart starts beat a bit faster and the butterflies erupt in my stomach whenever we’re forced to go around and say our middle names to the group in an icebreaker, though that could just be my fear of public speaking in general. I feel the dread of having to see everyone’s eyebrows perk up in surprise after not hearing “Marie” or “Rose” for the third time in a row. I know I’m going to have to explain how to pronounce it and watch as everyone tries their best to match the shape my mouth makes, asking if they’re doing it right, although I’ve told this same group of people four times already since we do the same icebreaker every year. I know I’ll have to spell it out, sound out the syllables, and after spending triple the amount of time on my name as everyone else’s, I'll move the spotlight off of me as quickly as possible, since I hate attention, by accepting a random pronunciation, even though it sounds nothing like the word in question to me and more like a jumbled version of every Asian name they’ve ever encountered. If I were braver or better, maybe I’d actually teach them and force them to understand that part of me, but I don’t think I am. Instead I’ll probably end my turn by saying it a final time the “White” way, which will be met with a chorus of “Oh”s and slouches of relief as everyone accepts it in it’s simple form. And no, of course I don’t expect them to say it perfectly the first time; to be honest, I’m not even sure that I say it with the correct accent every time, but it really is just a stomach sinking feeling to have to hear an “aww, that’s so pretty” after someone else’s English middle name and be met with looks of confusion and a sudden expectation of a lesson in the Vietnamese language for yours. It’s the feeling of hearing the name “Nguyen” mispronounced at a graduation or an induction, though it is one of the most common Vietnamese names and you live in a city with a large Vietnamese population. It’s the feeling of someone saying, “Oh… so like Mulan” after you say your name, which is a situation I’ve actually been in, though at the time (and even looking back now), it’s a comical and almost unexplainable type of offense that I can’t really wrap my mind around. I don’t even remember if it was said with malicious intent or how I responded, though it was most likely met with an awkward laugh and a change of subject. 

I am only forced to feel this way, maybe three or four times out of the year and very briefly, which is why I will never understand what it’s like to feel that way on a daily basis with a “difficult” first name. And I put “difficult” in quotation marks, because it’s not actually difficult at all. It just speaks to the character of those who see a name that is different than the ones they surround themselves with and choose to label it as “difficult” because they don’t like change and they don’t like “different.”

So to those of you with the long names, with the unique names, or with the non-English names--you are so strong, and I hope that for all the times you are met with questioning eyes, you will be met with twice as much celebration and appreciation of your culture, your history, and your life. Because I know that when people really get it, it’s really an amazing feeling. My experience sounds so juvenile, but one time when we were going around saying our middle names for an icebreaker, right when we got to me a friend of mine in the group said something like “Wait, I know it,” and proceeded to say my middle name the closest I have ever heard it before, without any prompting at all, and it made me feel fuzzy all over. So for all the butchered pronunciations, we have those moments to look forward to, and many more because it’s obvious that we all have such rich cultures and experiences and histories that we thankfully get to be reminded of everyday with just our names. 

If you know someone who’s name you can’t quite pronounce yet, please take the time out of your day to just learn. It takes maybe three minutes to look up the pronunciation and maybe five to try to learn how to say it. Don’t be afraid; even if it’s not one hundred percent correct, an effort counts for something. But also please do not pronounce it in a mocking manner or accent, which I have heard many times. Don’t be that person, it’s not funny. Obviously I don’t speak for everyone, so if someone tells you to call them by another name or a nickname or to stop pronouncing it that way, then simply listen to them. 

So you with the long name, the unique name, the “foreign name,” make them say it right. Take back the power of your name; you get to decide what you tell other people to call you, and if it’s not your given name that’s great too, but if it is, remember: You don’t have to teach them, it’s not your job, but I promise you that you are stronger than you think and you deserve for your name to be respected and called correctly.