What's in a name?

Probably a lot more than you'd expect.

Once again, seems that my Fashion and Politics class is intersecting with my life. Yesterday, we discussed black girl hair, and how potentially every hairstyle can be seen as political, which reminded me of a conversation I had the other day about subtle acts of politics. We've always had it drilled into us that actions speak louder than words, and I have to say, though I am a wordswoman, this is so true.

Just as growing a 'fro can be intended as a way to show Black Pride and resist mainstream beauty expectations, giving your kid an ethnic name can function the same way.

It definitely saddens me that there is a new generation of Indo-American children who want to give their children assimilable names. So every girl gets named Anita or Sheela and the number of boys named Neal that I've met is not surprising. These names can pass for white. I do have to say, these are fine names, I'm not trying to diss them. Neal means blue, it's a descriptor for the Lord Krishna, he being the dark-skinned one. However, I hate hearing people say they want to give their kids a passing name, one that Americans can pronounce and will allow their kids to fit in in America. The thing is when we talk about assimilating to American culture, we're almost always talking about white America. I've never heard anyone saying they wanted to give their kids a name that "sounds black."

Speaking of black names, I think it's incredibly ignorant when I hear people criticizing "black names." You always hear that they sound funny, that the moms just make up the craziest names they can think of. What you don't hear is that the movement for giving kids unique names came about around the time of the Black Power movement, as a way of reclaiming names. I've read that women wanted to give their children names that sounded African, yet as they had been removed from Africa centuries ago and the masters had given their slaves more "acceptable" names, they had to improvise in many cases. And so these new names entered the lexicon. I respect this move for cultural reclamation. If people can name their children Apple, or whatever else the celebs call their kids, why should black people be called out for making up names for their children?

Getting back to what I was originally talking about, I used to hate that people could not pronounce my name. Now that I'm older, I absolutely love my name. It actually means something, and I'm proud of that. I'm actually surprised that everyone's first instinct is to just stare at my name and then say, "Deeevya Aamlady?" Not so much. The real way to pronounce my name is Dhivya Um-la-dee. I already anglicized my name to drop that "dh" sound but since "div" is naturally occurring in English (divide, divvy, diversify), who would have guessed it would be that hard to say?

Still, in my culture, at least with the Hindu Konkani ethnic group, names really stand for something. My name is Sanskrit for "divine." My brother Sandeep's name means "light." My mother Sona - her name is gold. These words are chosen to describe something about the child, or to bless the child. I couldn't be happier with my name, I aim to live up to it someday. So, like I said, names carry a lot more weight than you might think.