What’s in a name?

Well, in one sense, nothing. In another sense, a whole lot.

Names can mean a lot to ourselves, and arguably even more to those who first gave them to us.

That can lead to some struggles.

If you didn’t feel connected to your name, would you consider changing it even if it angered people in your family?

Let’s see why this young lady wants to change her name.

AITA for trying to change my name

For context, my parents are divorced.

My dad is African and comes from a culture where each person gets a unique family name that honors a relative.

I’ll try to explain this with all fake names.

So these aren’t the real names, but they are analogues for the situation:

For example, my dads full name is “Fox Sean,” and my surname was originally “Fox Nadine,” named after his aunt.

But in my country, that naming system isn’t allowed, so now my legal name is “Jane Misa Nadine Fox Sean.”

And here’s the difficulty:

My name feels too long, complicated, and foreign for where I live.

I never use most of it. I just go by “Misa Fox.”

I don’t feel connected to Nadine, my namesake.

She was nice when I was a baby, but I haven’t heard from her aside from a hello over my grandma’s phone.

I haven’t been back to Africa either nor do I want to be.

So the proposal on the table is this:

I want to legally change my name to “Misa Kim,” using my mom’s surname, which fits better in my country and feels more like me.

But my dad got very upset when he heard of it, accusing my mom of influencing me and saying I’m rejecting his culture and the family.

He told me that I am destroying my identity.

He was hurt, looking almost teary, and so were my brothers.

A name and an identity are not the same, but they are closely related.

My father’s family is probably going to disown me over this too.

My mom is fully on board and knows this name will help me get a job and not be perceived as a immigrant.

Her father is really upset about this.

I wanted to add that my father has thought and still thinks that I’m trying to whitewash myself because I hang around white people too much and want to close my gap.

He also said that my mom’s name has no value and that he is my father, whatever that means.

I feel bad because the culture seems really important to him and his family. Its going back centuries but I prefer my moms name.

It’s her name. If she’s an adult, she can legally change her name no matter what her dad thinks.

Let’s see what the comments on Reddit make of this:

Ultimately, you have to weigh it out.

But it is YOUR name.

And it’s also your life.

Personally “your mom’s name has no value to you,” is a red flag for me.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.