Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
THE POWER OF YOUR NAME
NAMES are important. It’s a lesson I learnt when I was 7 years old and my mother found out I went by another name in school.
It was a Friday afternoon and my mother had come to fetch me. She bumped into my classmate, Cyrilia, and asked her if she had seen Buhle. To my mother’s surprise, Cyrilia didn’t know a Buhle. Confused, my mother walked around the school looking for me and found me on the playground, a dishevelled mess and my shirt smeared with dirt.
And then Cyrilia came skipping down the corridor and said: “Oh, you were looking for Bushle? I didn’t know.”
My mother turned around, confused and looked at me. “Is that what they call you?” she asked in Zulu. I looked down and muttered, “Yes”. She knelt down and asked why I hadn’t told my teachers and classmates to pronounce my name correctly. I just said I was scared to backchat the teachers because
I could get into trouble. She sighed and told me she would sort it out.
She never could and, for many years I let it slide. I went from Buhle, to Bushle, Bush and Bootle. I laughed at this, even though I really wanted to correct them. I once even offered to teach my classmates how to pronounce my name, making them emphasise the “hle” in my name. It was a waste of time.
Over the years I have become known as Boo, B and BBM. I have come to reluctantly accept these abbreviations. Rather that than the names I was called in school.
Reading Bafta and Emmy-winning actor,
Thandiwe Newton’s interview with Diana Evans in British Vogue earlier this week, left me feeling happy for her. To finally reclaim your name and force Hollywood to call you by your real name, is such a power move that I can’t help but admire her. It also comes with a deepening sense of self, knowing who you are and finally realising you have had enough of not being allowed to be your true self.
For more three decades, Thandiwe was known by Thandie after John Duigan, director of her first film, (1991), asked her to use her real name for the character
Flirting in the film. “The director of my first film asked to use my actual name (Thandiwe) for the character – because it was authentic and beautiful. I felt flattered and agreed.”
However, in the credits, they ended up using her nickname, Thandie, to differentiate from the character name, Thandiwe Adjewa. And it stuck. “They stole my name. And I’m taking it back,” she said.
All future credits will be with the correct spelling of her name.
Thandiwe is not the only Hollywood A-Lister who has changed their name.
Earlier this year Anne Hathaway also asked to be called by a different name, her nickname, Annie. The Oscar winner revealed to Jimmy Fallon she regretted using her real name during an appearance on
Tonight Show.
The
“Everybody call me Annie, please. So feel free, call me anything but Anne.”
She then explained why she preferred to be called Annie as opposed to Anne. “The only person who calls me Anne is my mother. She only does it when she’s really mad at me, like really mad. So every time I step out in public and someone calls my name, I think they’re going to yell at me… People are like, ‘Anne!’ And I’m like ‘What? What did I do?’”
Over the years we have also had to get used to music executive Sean John Combs changing his name. There was Puff Daddy, then Puffy, P Diddy and then Diddy. In 2019, he filed a petition to change his middle name John to Love, meaning he will be officially known as Sean Love Combs.
What Thandiwe has done has made many of us remember our names have meaning and they were given to us to wear with pride. So many of my school friends who used their English names have reverted to their African names. They mostly recoil in discomfort when you call them by their English names.
I bumped into Cyrilia a few year ago. I was met with a blank expression when I said, “Hello, Cyrilia.” She composed herself and then said: “My name is Nombulelo.”