Just a name

I stopped counting all the tries my classmates growing up took before they got my name right (Joobee? Jookee?), the people I just didn’t correct (I got called Yuhi for three months once), the teachers who froze when they saw my name on the attendance sheet, the way I’d explain my name in relation to a more normal one (it’s like Julie but with an H!). But it’s just a name.

I’ll never forget that when I walked across the football field in Sanford Stadium at halftime at the homecoming game, on my dad's arm in front of 92,000 people, a surreal moment I couldn't believe I got to be part of, they called me Ju-HIGH. When I walked across the stage at the Herbst Theater in my new home of San Francisco, during the ceremony to receive the white coat that marked the start of my training, it was JO-hi. But it’s just a name.

It’s only four letters, two syllables. So many others have it way worse. So what if the Starbucks barista gets it wrong? If I never find it on a keychain in a gift store? I used to feel bad for causing so much trouble when introducing myself - sometimes I still do. It’s just a name!

I’m not sure if people with common names realize this but when you have a name like mine, people avoid saying it. It’s so rare to hear my name dropped casually in a conversation that when it happens, I remember and I count. Hearing my name said out loud correctly, it’s a balm, it’s music, an embrace. 

I have plenty of complaints about David Perdue. But the way he deliberately mocked Kamala Harris yesterday.... He tripped over her three syllables and it was a message that she’s different, an outsider, that she doesn’t belong with his idea of "us", that it’s not worth the trouble to learn how to say her name. Because well... it’s not just a name, not really.

I’ve spent so much energy on the defense that I haven’t always given my space to celebrate my name. There was a time I wished my parents had given me something easier, something that rolls off the tongue, or at least a cute middle name that I could turn to instead. But I've realized that I do really like my name. A flower, that grows and blossoms and adapts to its surroundings, a flower that’s soft and gentle but has fierce vines and roots that run deep. It’s a great namesake. My name lends itself well to be said with excitement, stretching out that I at the end of it. I like the look of it typed out or written on paper. I didn’t choose it but it’s who I am, who I’m growing into. And it’s not just a name. 

Your difficult name is made of great beauty ✨ it’s where you come from, and hopefully it was bestowed with love. Regardless though, it’s yours to grow into and fill out and make your own and what’s more beautiful than creating meaning out of what life has given us? What would it look like if we embraced our names, not as inconveniences but as resistances? Kamala means lotus, another flower, this time the kind that blooms in a messy, hard environment of the mud, but maybe it won't matter how people pronounce it because pretty soon we'll be calling her Madame Vice President.

“give your daughters difficult names. give your daughters names that command the full use of tongue. my name makes you want to tell me the truth. my name doesn’t allow me to trust anyone that cannot pronounce it right.”
-warsan shire

(LOL I sent this to my sister who told me that Jon Ossoff (the democratic candidate who's trying to unseat Perdue) raised $1 million since Perdue mocked Harris's name - beautiful.)