The Importance of Pronouncing Ethnic Names
Our names are a large part of our identity. As soon as we are born, we are immediately assigned a name; something that people call us and what we respond to for the rest of our life. It becomes who we are as a person. Everything on this planet has a name, that’s what makes us so distinguishable. Our sense of self-identity grows as we grow throughout our life, but our name or what we prefer people to call us stays the same. That is why correctly pronouncing ethnic names is so important.
Growing up in a Latino household, I never knew my name was different from others because everyone around me was able to pronounce it with no problems. I later found out that my parents had gone through the effort to pick out a name that could be correctly said in English and in Spanish. Even before I was born, they were attempting to spare me the difficulty that I may face with my name, yet it wasn’t enough for western culture. On the flip side, it is common for immigrant households to give their children westernized names to save their children from teasing or to make it easier for their white counterparts to pronounce. The westernization of names dates back to the earliest periods of immigration in the United States, and continues to stay present today. Rather than naming their child a culturally significant name or just a common name in their own language, they realized the country they were in and remembered the future of their children. People of color should not have to accommodate the ways of western culture, especially when it comes to their own identity.
It wasn’t until high school that I realized most people are just lazy and didn’t care enough to go the extra mile and pronounce my name correctly. Even in school, teachers I had had since freshman year would still say my name incorrectly by the time I hit senior year of high school. I went to a very small school and it was a predominantly white institution (PWI). Lots of times the names they saw on paper were names they were already familiar with. The mispronunciation made me feel as though they didn’t truly know who I was; almost as if I didn’t make that lasting impression on them. In my junior year, more than halfway through the semester, my anatomy teacher mispronounced my name in front of the class. I corrected him and he proceeded to tell me that he was going to call me Natalie instead because Natalia was too difficult to remember and to say. I felt awful after that encounter and just sat there in shock. Natalia is not a difficult name to pronounce and unfortunately the embarrassment of the mispronunciation of one’s ethnic name can be far worse than my own experiences.
Names are just the introduction to our entire identity. Hearing our ethnic names being pronounced correctly shows a sense of effort and inclusivity. Giving a person of color a nickname or a completely different name for the sake of saving yourself from butchering it strips that person of their identity. Lots of names come with history and culture that can feel lost without one’s pronunciation endeavor. The effort being put forth to correctly pronounce an ethnic name is not an inconvenience and allows for the person to be seen and respected.
Written By Natalia Cordero
Graphic By Mikayla Buneta