The Name Soup
“My favorite was the aluminum colored dress which was glamorous enough to wear to the theater, which we randomly picked from the catalog, but later found it was the same our humorous neighbor with a mustache and smoldering eyes, living in the gray contemporary house, had been marveling about”. I feel liberated writing this sentence and not having to worry about my english teachers in India finding at least ten spelling mistakes! Each of the words in bold is spelled differently in India. Moving from English to American, I struggled with “aluminum”, still sometimes pronouncing the ‘i’ in “aluminium”. But I gladly dropped the “me” from “programme” or the “u” from “labour”. Switching the “re” in “metre” made sense, and I was ecstatic that a Paediatrician was officially spelled without the first “a”. 
In America, it wasn’t just the language that is simplified. Names were simplified as well. At my first workplace I was introduced to Bill, Liz, Steve, Amy, a couple of Daves, and a bunch of other names that were equally easy. When I introduced myself, my co-worker Lily Chu asked if it was my English name, which was an eye-opener to the diverse American culture, rich with flavors of many ethnicities and races. As a child my favorite show was "Mind Your Language" which is a sitcom about an English speaking class for immigrants. So I understood that in an effort to keep things simple, many people might adopt an English name upon moving to America. I associated this simplification to friends from South India, who would use one or two initials followed by their given name, much to our relief, as some names could be rather long. The initials indicated their father’s name and the place they came from (or in some cases grandfather's name), which in its long form will be one big mouthful. A scene from a Bollywood movie Dhamaal illustrates this naming concept through a humorously exaggerated adaptation with a rather long name starting with .... Perambdur Chinnaswami Muttuswami Venugopal Iyer .
Before moving to the US, I thought my name was easy enough, and didn’t feel the need to adopt a whole new name. Furthermore, I may never have responded to someone calling me “Lucy” or “Gloria”. To keep all the guesswork out, I learned to introduce myself as “Lauri with a G” to simplify "Gauri" which is how my name is pronounced in Hindi-speaking regions of India, where I was raised. In other parts of the country it is pronounced with a stretched “au” sounding like G“ow”ri. Both as accepted Indian pronunciations. I emphasized that it wasn’t “Gary”, which I have been called, before my appearance and gender surprised them. Yeah...names can have subtle nuances, and I felt it was so important to get one’s name right. Especially for immigrants, for whom their name is sometimes the only identity and connection they hold on to their heritage, besides all the memories of the life they leave behind in their homeland.
In recent years I have encountered many examples of people of different ethnicities keeping their names. I was very impressed to find an author amidst my friends, who tackled the issue of names for young children in her book “The Name Soup”. The author, Sandhya Sameera Pillalamarri, does not go by Sandy or Sam; but her full name. The story is about a girl of Thai descent, whose name is a mouthful. The little girl is not happy about her situation. The author has the girl traverse through little episodes and experiences in her life around her friends from different cultures and ethnicities until she explores the roots of her own name. Pillalamari’s book not only explores the genesis of names for young children to understand and be proud of their heritage, but also the differences that make the American culture rich through diversity. A unique feature of the book is a story about the Native Indian Culture. Set in exotic Arizona, it is an easy, interesting book, I would highly recommend this book to elementary school children. It is available on Amazon. Even as a grown-up reading that book, I could relate to the incidents, and wish it was available when my children were that age.
There is no one answer to how one identifies with their name. Some people like to simplify, some like to hold on to their name as a reminder of their culture and heritage, and some just don’t like the sound of it and want to change it to something more relatable. The one thing I learned over the years is that it is ok to ask a person’s name again, if you did not get it the first time. That reinforces the person’s identity in one’s mind, in the form of the name that they identify with. And if the name is difficult, it is ok to learn to pronounce it, in a show of respect to the different cultures.
Mind your language:
Paper on Polish names:
Image credit:
https://amyreece.wordpress.com/2017/09/07/whats-in-a-name-the-importance-of-character-names/
So powerful! The best of you so far (at least for me) Gauri. It touches almost every single immigrant. All can relate to this. Didn't realize until you said, that name is the only identify one has, and getting it right is very important.
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