What's In A Name: NPR College Podcast Challenge 2022 GRAND PRIZE WINNER by Aria Young published on 2022-03-01T02:34:27Z What’s in a name? Shakespeare might say names are irrelevant, but to me, my name is my identity. When I left my home Shanghai and moved to suburban Pennsylvania at age 16, I was asked to adopt an English name. Five years later, the abandonment of my native Chinese name, 杨沁悦, has made me feel lost and confused about my cultural identity. How is my Chineseness viewed in American society, and how do I connect to it? This podcast is about my journey back to my roots through the acceptance of my name. In this podcast, I explore the meaning of my name and its relation to my identity. Through an interview with my high school teacher, I reflect on my various American experiences and how they have shaped me. By accepting my once-rejected name, I reconnect with my culture, lineage, and my immigrant identity. Genre Storytelling Comment by Ioannis Valasakis Love that :) 2023-03-16T15:54:09Z Comment by David Thank you Aria, Growing up in the 70's, I was going to school with the name "Wey Mun" spelled Waymond for the Americanized version. Many classmates would make fun by saying that my name was "Raymond" pronounced woth a lisp. Hence my adopting my Christion name of David as my legal name. I too have struggled with my dual idenity and your story reminded me of those feelings. Thank you . 2022-05-09T22:41:21Z Comment by Tony Zhang Have been using Tony as my first name since my first internet interaction on ICQ. Not until recent years being a father and entrepreneur became hige fan of psychology and philosophy, only to understand my chinese name Tao link to Taoism and water :) 2022-05-06T03:18:30Z Comment by BeRmEt Thank you for sharing it-It inspired me to tell my story. 2022-04-20T06:16:44Z Comment by David Chan Thanks for sharing! I’ve recently started contemplating adding my Chinese name to my legal name so I totally empathize with your story. Let’s reclaim the power in our glorious Chinese names! And while we’re at it, do that for our heritage, history, 2022-04-12T02:26:30Z Comment by KNKX Education Great story! I hope so many people will listen to your story Aria 2022-04-11T17:00:39Z Comment by Oliver Ruebenacker Hello Yáng Qìn Yuè, thank you for sharing your story! As we software engineers say: naming is hard! Most of my Chinese friends and collegues use their Chinese names and write them using Pinyin, but without tones. Since I started to learn a little bit of Chinese, I realize how essential the missing tones are, so whenever I read a Chinese name in toneless Pinyin, I wonder what the tones are. I also still have difficulties to detect always the tones by hearing, but hopefully will get there. 2022-04-11T14:12:36Z
