What´s in a Name?

At the beginning of a very inspirational workshop I took part to at the beginning of this week, organised by LADS Akademie in Berlin, on topics of anti-racism, the participants were asked to tell the story of their name: what does it mean, what is the origin, what is the story or the stories associated with it.

A very good start of a long discussion about racism and discrimination, in Germany and elsewhere, because, more often than not, a name may carry a heavy history. A name is not only a choice of your parent - with all the positive and negative aspects involved by that - but especially for those living as minorities or displaced from their countries of origins, it carries a tragic destiny. 

Especially when, in Berlin, for instance, a foreign-sounding name (especially if labelled of outside Western Europe, Arabic or Slavic) may limit your chances to rent an apartment. Or, when you are forced to change it for a more ´majority´-sounding one, in order to better fit the sound and the music of oppressive majorities.

When your own place of birth changes political hands, your name may be despised as belonging to a relative minority or majority. It can be wrongly written and pronounced in official contexts and, eventually, changed against your will. Your identity documents are the proof of how one or another authority decided against your will to modify your name. According to one hilarious family story, the brothers of my maternal grandfather were each and every one of them had their family name written completely different up to the various moods and levels of literacy of the officials that registered their births. At least in one instance, my great-great parents were told: What name is that? Doesn´t sound local? So they automatically made it sound so...

Learning how to correctly pronounce one name is a sign of respect and consideration, the first step towards acknowledging someone´s identity, and therefore respecting it. 

Everything starts with a name and indeed, a name means so much. Sometimes, a whole rich story extended across time, geography and generations.