What's In a Name?
Last month, a couple of co-workers and I were putting together a presentation as part of a weekly celebration of Black History Month. Ours was centered around a TED Talk by Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Of course, the question of how exactly to pronounce her name came up.
I already knew, thanks to Beyoncé’s song "***Flawless" which features a sample of another incredible TEDx Talk by Chimamanda called, "We Should All Be Feminists" (“We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller”). But as someone with a name that's often mispronounced, it was important to me that we (and everyone at our presentation) got it just right.
Intent versus impact
Our discussion got me thinking: How many of us have had teachers or other people in a position of authority butcher our names in front of our peers? How many of us have had people straight up tell us that they won’t even bother trying to properly pronounce our names because it's "too hard" or "they don't want to mess it up"? In my experience, the latter is always framed as some sort of a favour. The intent usually isn't to be dismissive. But is the dismissal of another person's name ever really a "favour"?
And for most BIPOC, these experiences - and their impact - start early and mess with the perception of ourselves from a young age:
We start to shrink ourselves to fit in better;
We introduce ourselves by nicknames;
We change or westernize our names;
And all for the sake of making us more palatable to others.
The question of who "gets" to have a "difficult" name
When I was in the second grade, I started spelling my name D-I-A-N-A because everyone else did and I thought *I* must’ve been wrong. I *still* get emails with my name spelled wrong despite every professional email I've ever had having the correct spelling of my name laid bare.
So, decades later, when I came across this story it struck me to my core. It never occurred to me to think of what I'd always dealt with in this way. It never occurred to my mother to teach me to stand up for myself and my name. And the more I thought about it, the more I noticed a dissonance between who "got" to have a hard-to-pronounce name - one that commanded respect and every ounce of effort put into saying it correctly - and who didn't. Both in the media and in our daily lives.
So, what's in a name?
Chimamanda’s speech centres around the dangers of a single story. As a writer, that got me thinking, 'Well, how does a story start?'
The title.
For many of us, our name is the very first word of our story. It not only tells people who we are but where we came from and so much more. Unfortunately, for many BIPOC, we spend years (if not a lifetime) making sure others get that story right. People say, “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” but what if someone decides that the title of your book is too complicated or foreign and writes it off completely? It's hard, in that moment, not to feel as though they're writing you (a person) off as well.
I say all of that to say this: The next time you're meeting someone for the first time, introducing a new employee to your team, or even reading up on historical BIPOC figures, think - really think - about their name, what it represents, and what it means to them.
Remember that the perceived "difficulty" of a name is strictly reliant on your point of reference. It's new to you, so it may be difficult to pronounce but that's not necessarily the case for others.
The next time you come across a name that seems difficult to pronounce, rather than brush it off, think of that name as that person’s story. Ask yourself:
Are you willing to get to know them? To pick up that book and read it?
Are you willing to ask them, respectfully, how their name is pronounced or how they'd like to be called (how they'd really like to be called, not just the name they've settled on to make it easier for you)?
If you're passionate about building a culture of diversity, inclusion, and belonging, sometimes it's as simple as the above.
It all starts with a name.
-D.