Oppression Through Erasure of Identity 

When someone says my name—any of my names depending on my relationship to you: Tumisang, Tumi, Ramarea, Rama—my soul beams with a deep joy of being. In that moment I feel seen and acknowledged. It feels like the person invoking my name is bearing witness to my entire existence. In the many years I have lived abroad, I have felt the withering of my soul when my name is mispronounced—and that’s the worst I’ve experienced. 

Yet I’ve witnessed others go through worse. I know people who have had to abandon their culturally rich African names in exchange for their English middle names, so white people (or other dominant group) can have an easier time pronouncing their names. (This happens in Botswana too when we insist on giving our international visitors Setswana names and use them in place of their own names—especially without their consent.) Which is ironic considering how phonetic African names are. How can one pronounce Tchaikovsky with ease and struggle with a name like Kedibonye?

There is more to a name than just a label to use to get someone’s attention. Especially a cultural name—it carries the weight of a heritage that is instantly erased when the name is substituted anyhow. Even if the name is being translated from its original language to another. 

Names carry deep meaning in their original language. While names can be somewhat translated, the essence in the original language is often hard to convey because language is much more than just literal meaning. It is a way of thinking, a way or reasoning and more importantly a way of seeing the world.

In most cases, the people insisting upon the substitution (either with a different name in the local language or a translation of the name) are from a culture with situational dominance. It is oppressive to use that situational dominance to erase one’s identity. What can be more erasing to one’s identity than when they are denied the rights to their authentic name? 

One of the few convictions I hold is that life is meant to be a shared experience and we are meant to thrive in community with one another. To build community with one another we have to know each other. To know each other, we have to be willing to see one another. And to see, we need to begin with curiosity. When we tell someone we will call them by a translation of their name, we are not being curious, we are silencing them. 

If we have hopes of building lasting relationships with anyone, may we start with curiosity. First ask for their name and learn to say it. If they share the meaning in a language you know, it’s to enhance your understanding of the depth of the name, not to offer an alternative name. If you acknowledge their name by saying it—and saying it as properly as the adaptation of your mother tongue would let you—then maybe they might trust you with revealing more of their identity beyond the name. 

To anyone who has been forced to abandon a cultural name you were given, or who has been given a nickname to make others comfortable, I hope you reclaim your name back. May you know the joy of being called by your proper name. If you’re someone who calls others by anything other than their name, may you transcend the oppressive urge to erase the other person’s identity. And hopefully we all can enjoy the joys of being witnessed, and bearing witness to one another’s journey of being.