By Debanjali Pan
Names are strange things.
Something that marks you even before you can comprehend anything.
Something fundamental to your identity.
A part of your core —
And yet,
Never fully yours.
My name, given to me by my mother and accepted by my father —
What were their thoughts when they chose to bestow it upon me?
Am I supposed to fit the name?
Or is the name supposed to fit me?
I am caught in the push and pull of it,
Unknowing if the pieces align.
My name is an elegant thing.
But I don’t always say it right.
The pronunciation changes depending on who is asking.
People have stumbled over my name, twisted it, mispronounced it —
And I have made them all a part of me.
Their mistakes leave their own marks on my name, give it shape, make me theirs.
My given name is not the only name I have.
Nicknames — I have quite a few of them.
My ma prefers one, my dad another;
Preferred, even, over the name they gave me.
Didi is a designation, and yet, when my brother says it, it feels like mine too.
My nani uses one, my nana another, and my dadi something else entirely.
My nicknames have changed as I have changed schools, states, and friends.
They have changed as the people around me have changed.
What I am called on the playground is not what I am called in the classroom.
The neighbors I grew up around had names for me too,
Tied to the shrieks of childhood laughter.
Some names connect me to other people, like the echo of a shared laugh.
Others belong solely to me — familiar gifts shaped by the mouths that spoke them.
But they are all still me, still mine.
Every name I have answered to, every variation and adaptation —
They are pieces I have gathered, pieces I cannot separate myself from.
They mark who I have been and who I am.
And they will follow me into the future.
They tell the story of how I have been reckoned.
Names carry so much.
They can be small and fleeting,
Yet they hold the weight of how I am remembered.
Each name is a thread in the fabric of who I am.
Every name, every version — I carry them all.
They are all me, all mine.
I answer to all of my names.