What’s in a name?

Every very time I order my signature drink at a Starbucks or call to make a reservation for a restaurant, I tell a white lie. Lying isn’t in my nature, but as an ardent pragmatist, I like to make things easier for the employees when I can, as long as it doesn’t hurt me in the process. My name isn’t actually Kevin, but it is to many of the service employees I’ve interacted with throughout my life. My intent is not to undermine the name that my family, for days, deliberated upon; it’s just smoother for everyone involved than forcing the barista to struggle with pronouncing my name when my drink is ready.

This is a petty example of the kinds of problems that “exotically-named” people like myself face living in America, but it leads us to a question that we ask ourselves at some point in our lives: What do I want my name to be? Do I want people to have to labor with the spelling and pronunciation of my given name for the rest of my life? Or should I permanently use “Kevin” to make everybody’s life a little easier? It’s a question that, in particular, Asian-Americans struggle with throughout their early lives. In fact, this issue is prominent enough to be featured in an episode from the Asian-American sitcom “Fresh Off the Boat.”

Growing up with an Asian name in the states, my name’s unconventionality and its penchant for rhyming with a number of undesirable words led itself to be the subject of numerous bouts of ridicule. Although somewhat humorous in hindsight, the crux of the derision was probably in my middle school years during the release of the movie “Juno,” in which I was repeatedly compared to a very pregnant Ellen Page. But beyond childhood taunting, using an Asian name has actually been shown to affect the person’s career development, including opportunities for jobs or admissions to schools. It’s an unacceptable situation, but the unfortunate reality of our world is that this nature of discrimination will happen, with or without intent, and there is no panacea.

Therefore, it’s undeniable that using an English name helps with communication and quality of life in America. And it’s something that Asian parents have realized. For example, in the Korean-American community, it’s now a very common practice to give children an English first name and a Korean middle name to maintain a “dual identity”: one to keep their lives in America a little easier and another to remind them about their heritage and retain their cultural pride.

This compromise is nothing new: first-generation and second-generation immigrants have dealt with similar problems for over a century. For example, European immigrants disembarking at Ellis Island in the early 1900s arrived with unfamiliar names, and many changed their names soon after they settled for similar reasons as described above and in order to fit well into the community.

Although it might seem unfair, it’s a small price to pay for these immigrants, who voluntarily left their homes to seize the opportunities that awaited them in America or to escape a troubled situation in their original countries. They knew that making cultural compromises for themselves and their children would be necessary in order to live fulfilling lives as Americans, and this was often taken into account when making the decision to emigrate.

As a second-generation American, I value the sacrifices my parents made and fully understand that my family’s assimilation into American culture and any discrimination I face is an inevitable artifact of their decision to settle to a new country. I continue to recognize and celebrate the culture of my parents’ home country, but, at the same time, I respect their sacrifices by persevering through any racial or cultural discrimination I’ve faced, while embracing American culture and making it a part of my cultural identity.

As the country hopefully continues to accept immigrants from all parts of the world, this process of integration will inherently remain. But if coming generations continue to be more mindful of the societal and cultural issues that face everyday people doing everyday things, there’s good reason to be optimistic about the future: with each other, and with our baristas.