I clearly remember the day my name went from Saman to Sam. I was a newly arrived child immigrant in this country and had just started school in a largely white area. It was a sunny day and the PE teacher was standing on the netball courts taking the roll. When he came to my name he couldn’t for the life of him pronounce it. “Salmon” he asked? I didn’t respond. I didn’t even know he was calling my name. I thought it was someone else. He tried again with another mispronunciation. By now some of the kids were getting involved and began to pronounce my name in different ways. Even now I think how can five letters in a name be combined to produce the countless variations I’ve heard over the years?
Eventually the PE teacher gave up and said, “how about we just call you Sam?” I remember him clearly, even now, taking out his pen and scratching out my name before rewriting it as Sam. And thus Sam was born.
It became easier for me too in many ways as Sam was easier to pronounce than my own name.
I was a shy child and didn’t speak up then. I hadn’t found my voice and it would take me many years before I learned to speak up for myself. But for the rest of my schooling years most of my friends would go on to call me Sam. It became easier for me too in many ways because as Sam I didn't have to put in the effort to ensure people knew how to pronounce my name. And so I went with it right up to university, when I thought, wait, I want people to make an effort with my name. I want them to pronounce all of it, not just the first three letters.
For Newton, the change in her name occurred when the 'w' in Thandiwe was taken out in the credits of her first film, and since then her nickname 'Thandie' stuck. As the actress later tweeted: "...in the credits they used my ‘nickname’ to differentiate from the character name. They stole my name. And I’m taking it back."
As was the case for me, Newton's name change didn't mean she was giving herself a new name, rather she was reclaiming the name she was given at birth.
"That’s my name. It’s always been my name. I’m taking back what’s mine," she said in her interview with British Vogue.
Newton’s announcement lead to much support on social media with a number of POC talking about the toll it takes to make your birth name more palatable in a Western context.
Thandiwe Newton told British Vogue how she's reclaiming her name back. Source: British Vogue
Ntombi A. Peters tweeted: “It is tiresome. It is never ending. People are always suggesting that we “Westernize” our names to make them “easier,” “more accessible,” “less exotic,” etc. It is dramatic: our names are part of our identity.”
Newton isn’t the only one to revert back to her birth name. Recently the actress playing Cheyenne in the workplace comedy, Superstore, changed her name from Nichole Bloom to Nichole Sakura.
As Sakura went on to explain in an , “as a kid, I was called Sakura at home, brought bento boxes to school, and loved visiting my relatives in Nagoya. When I arrived in LA as a teenager to pursue acting, I was told by my first agent that getting cast would be a challenge for me because I didn’t fit into any one category- I didn’t seem Asian or White enough.”
Having celebrities like Sakura and Newton reclaiming their name has inspired others to do the same. Newton for example was taken aback by how her actions impacted others. “I’m broken wide open by this - I was afraid to do it, but look at the reaction?,” she tweeted.
Reclaiming your name may seem like a small act but it is a big signifier about how you want to present yourself to the world. For me, as it seems to have been for Newton and Sakura, reclaiming my name was a way to reclaim my identity. It was also a big step in empowering myself, so there was no doubt when I presented myself to the world that I was unashamedly Saman, and not some abbreviated version of my given name.
