Shakespeare once said “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” I have been called different names – not in the surly way as that sounded. Take for example; my Mom calls me by my full names (not all 12 of them) when I do something wrong; my maternal grandmother calls me Folake (good thing I only get to see her once every five years or so. I have no qualms with the name, it’s just that my brain has refused to register it as mine), some of my friends call me “T-Mama”, as a Cadet in Foursquare church, I used to be called “Temitope”; and in high school all the way through college, I was mostly called “Tolani” and most recently, “Mo.”
I’ve been pondering about the complexity of names, especially when you have so many of them. I believe that naming a child is one of the biggest and most fundamental duties that parents have to toggle with when they bring a child to this world. It’s a either a hit or a miss! You cannot call dibs on halfsies here. To be called different names by different people can sometimes take a toll on you. I sometimes struggle with the Imposter syndrome or the guilt that I am taking on a different character at the calling of each name. This brings me to these vital questions, what exactly do we aim to achieve when we use different monikers, or rather what are the added benefits or what exactly do each name-calling take away from us?
Nonetheless, I think names can be a way of starting anew. Not in the way of someone on the lam who takes on a new identity (one can argue in favor of this too). Wait let me explain. Since I relocated to the US, I have created inventive ways for people to pronounce and spell my name properly; ranging from /taller-knee (like a Native-Indian name. I think it loosely means “One who runs with the wind.” Gerrit?)/ for the former and using word associations from the alphabets, i.e. M for Margarita, O for Oscar, T for Tango, etc. for the latter. Despite all my attempts, it has not been a successful feat. From the waitress at Einstein Bros who labeled my bagel order “Talany” exactly the way she bawled it over her PAS, to the barista at Starbucks who calls me “Toni” (what a recidivist! Quel dommage! I actually gave up all hopes in correcting that one. My boss calls this nonchalant behavior of mine – African Supremacy), to the tea-boy at Teapioca lounge (best bubble tea in Austin btw) who labelled my order as “Wu”, I had told him “Mo.”
Being in a new terrain has helped me really understand that your name is only as special as you make it, kinda like branding oneself. It is like the way you see other people’s kids, they are cute and all but only for so long before the novelty wears off. Armed with this realization, I decided at my new job in Boston to be called Mo! (Exclamation point inclusive). It represents many things – a new start and a way to forge ahead and to put behind all the mispronunciations and misspelling that so easily besets me. The realist in me thinks that I’m too naïve to be that optimistic. It thinks that the novelty will soon wear off, especially when someone calls me “Moo” or “Mo (followed by a tongue clicking sound (as in the Xhosa language). I jeer back at it. What do the voices in my head know? Who by the way, all have their own names. Now, you tell me, what’s in a name?
mosibyl 