Growing up, there was no moment quite as terrifying as attendance on the first day of school—my heart pounding as a new teacher went down the class roster, inching towards the “C” last names—because I knew that when they got to me, not only would I witness another creative way to butcher the six simple letters of my first name, but I would also cease to be another face in the room and become that Asian girl with the “foreign,” unpronounceable name.
It’s an experience shared amongst my non-white friends, many of whom have names that honor their non-American roots. But, let me let you in on a secret: my first name, Sinead, is Irish, but I’m not.
Growing up my parents told me they named me after Irish singer-songwriter Sinéad O’Connor, who famously tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live in 1992. They thought she was famous enough in the United States that everyone would know the name. Being immigrants from Taiwan who arrived in the United States in the ‘90s with their Chinese names in tow, they were all too familiar with the experience of bearing a foreign name.
My mother, Jin Liou, arrived in New York City to attend college at Pratt Institute in 1989. Prior to leaving Taiwan for the first time, she used a dictionary to spell her Chinese name out in English and came up with Tsuey-Jin Liou, unaware that the first part of her first name was pretty much unpronounceable to Americans. She recalled that she had one professor who gave up on saying her name altogether after a couple attempts, even during attendance. “The first time it happened, I thought that he didn’t see me in class so he didn’t call my name,” my mother said in Mandarin.* “When I went to talk to him afterwards, I thought that he looked embarrassed as he told me that he knew I came to class that day.”
*Interviews between my parents (Hungming Chang and Jin Liou) and me were conducted in a mixture of English, Mandarin and Taiwanese, how we usually speak at home.
Realizing the problem, my mother wrote her name as Jin Liou when starting graduate school at the University of Southern California, where she eventually met my father. “Suddenly, everyone could pronounce my name!” The name stuck, and it’s the name that appears in the end credits of the movies she worked on throughout my life. My mother explained to me that this experience made her realize the importance of having a name that was easy to pronounce.
My father, whose legal American name is Hungming Chang, goes by Alex. When he first arrived in Los Angeles to attend USC in 1993, he went by Lex, after a childhood South African friend. However, he quickly changed it to Alex when he realized that with his accent, people mistook it for L-A-X, the airport. My father regrets going by another name, since his Chinese name is pretty intuitive for Americans to pronounce. But at the time, friends who went to the United States before him insisted that adopting an American name was essential to survival in this country, and so Alex stuck. Now, he doesn’t mind Alex—he kept it after graduating and still goes by it today. For better or for worse, he thinks of the name as part of his identity now, but his closest friends know to call him Hungming.
As you can imagine, with the knowledge of my parents’ experiences I grew increasingly frustrated every time a teacher, classmate or Starbucks barista butchered my name, making me feel all the more singled out throughout my life. I found myself turning the same question over and over again in my mind: isn’t it horribly ironic that my parents, in an attempt to help me assimilate into their new country, put a celebrity’s name down on my birth certificate instead of the Chinese name they also gave me, only for me to experience the same discomfort they had?
I decided it was time for me to understand why, exactly, my name bothered me so much—after all, it’s just a name, and what’s in a name?
A Name is Everything
It’s easy to forget that our first name shapes our experience in this world: “It’s who you are,” Michelle Napierski-Prancl, a professor of sociology at Russell Sage College in Troy, N.Y. who studied the relationship between pop culture and female names, said. “One of the first things you learn to write is your name. One of the first things you do when you meet somebody is tell them your name. You own something, you don’t want it to be lost, you put your name on it. It’s your mark. When you die, you leave something with your name on it.”
Laura Wattenberg, author of the bestseller “The Baby Name Wizard,” has built an entire career around the cultural analysis of names. As she explained it, Americans have slowly moved away from classic names like John or Mary, instead seeing the act of naming a child as an opportunity to showcase their uniqueness.
“I sometimes like to compare it to an office that moves from a business dress code to an ‘anything goes’ dress code,” Wattenberg said in an interview. “If you walk into an office where everybody is wearing a business suit, then seeing somebody in a business suit, you don’t think anything of it… Whereas if you walk into an office where one person is wearing a business suit, and another person is wearing a t-shirt from a rock concert, you can draw conclusions from that.”
Napierski-Prancl agreed: “In the past, there might’ve been a feeling of family obligation to name your child after the traditions of your religion or ethnicity or culture. Today, there’s so much more freedom.”
In lieu of tradition, many have turned to pop culture for inspiration. One of Wattenberg’s examples was Kylo, after the “Star Wars” villain Kylo Ren. She noted that in contrast to the past, where children would be named in honor of someone, modern parents choose names based purely on sound, hence the popularity of a villain’s name. According to Napierski-Prancl’s research, many female names’ popularity in the past can be traced back to songs on the Billboard Hot 100 at the time. For example, when Toto released their song “Rosanna” in 1982, the name rose from the 743rd most popular female name in the United States five years prior to being the 438th. Napierski-Prancl found that this pattern repeated itself for many other song titles and their corresponding names.
“I think of the ultimate American names as names that are combinations of cultures,” Wattenberg added. “Name trends come here from everywhere, just as people come here from everywhere, and we have a tendency to mix and match.” As our first names become more cross-cultural, they’re becoming signals of our age, where we’re from, our background and sometimes our fathers’ taste in music.
American parents are freer than ever when it comes to naming their child. Instead of it being simply a ritual of childbirth, naming has become a huge opportunity for parents to bless their child with their own desires—or simply get creative. “The act of naming a baby is very much an act of dreaming about the future,” Wattenberg said.
“People could sum things up about you based on your name… They might think you’re attractive or ugly based on a name. If they see a name on a resume or see your name on an email they might come to some kinds of conclusions because of what they associate with that name, and first impressions are important,” Napierski-Prancl said. “[For parents] there’s a great deal of responsibility when [they] introduce this human being to the world.”
For the longest time, in an attempt to believe that I was special, I had thought about my name story as something extraordinary in a world filled with Marys and Jameses (the most popular names between 1921 and 2020). However, although I have yet to come across another Asian Sinead (if you’re out there, let me know!), it seems as if my name, and the story behind it, is somehow only ordinary.
Sinead C. Meets Sinead M.
Although I long knew my name existed beyond my parents’ imagination—my namesake, for one—I had never come across another Sinead, adding to the loneliness and strangeness my name brought. I had always assumed that much of the “otherness” I felt as a result of my strange name stemmed from my Asian looks. Not only did my skin stand out against the whiteness of this country, but of course I also had to have a funny name to go along with it. How typical!
In a world where race seems to define the entire identity of a person of color, I can’t help but assume my discomfort with my name stems from the discomfort of being Asian in the United States. But, if numerous high school science teachers have taught me anything, it’s that an experiment needs a control group. Or in my case, a white Sinead.
Luckily, I found one by searching the name on my Instagram and seeing who among my followers also followed another Sinead. Sinéad Murray, who grew up across the country in Long Island with my friend Olivia Corish, popped up. Throughout our entire call, which had been set up by Corish, I couldn’t quite get past the novelty of sharing a name with someone.
“As a child I felt very similar to the way you do,” Murray said about taking attendance with a new teacher. “There was a kid, Will, whose last name was first before me. So when [the teacher] would call his name, I knew that she was gonna call my name and I would be like, ‘it’s Sinead!,’ like I was trying to jump the gun.”
Murray, whose Irish father chose her name after she was born with shocking red hair and pale skin, shares a story strikingly similar to mine, from the same attendance-based nightmares to dreaming of one day finding a souvenir keychain with our name. However, I couldn’t help but notice that she seemed to be a much better wearer of our name. For one, she now spells her name with an accent over the “e,” the way Sinead (or Sinéad) should be spelled based on Irish tradition—her way of embracing our name.
We laughed over my deep fear of correcting people about my name that I haven’t gotten over to this day—so much so that I have friends I’ve known for years that still don’t pronounce it exactly right. (The most common problem: I prefer to have the “d” pronounced in my name, but many omit it.)
“I felt that way for a really long time,” Murray said. “And then I found myself in these really public facing jobs, and I was like, I’m just going to have to do it. I’m just going to have to bite the bullet. And now, I feel really comfortable doing it, and really comfortable in other aspects as well, like how that translates to me sticking out for myself for something that’s completely divorced from my name.”
The way Murray describes it, having the name Sinead has given her the superpower of confrontational skills that I can only dream of. As she puts it, “I can look at a stranger and be like, ‘that’s wrong,’ and that’s kind of badass.”
As I ended our Zoom call, I felt that I had reached a new understanding of my name. Murray and I grew up on opposite sides of the country with ancestry that can be traced back to different continents. On top of that, we look completely different. And somehow, despite all of these factors stacked against us, we had the exact same stories to tell, down to how our name has been mispronounced at the doctor’s office.
Perhaps Sinead didn’t have the intended effect that my parents wanted it to have. But I’m at fault too, assuming that somehow all of this name-based anxiety I’ve had to muddle through was tied to how I look. It’s quite possible that Sinead is just a very challenging name to wear.
The Interrogation
“Did you guys ever feel bad about naming me Sinead?”
I was on a Zoom call with my parents. It was the first time I had spoken to them at the same time in a while, since my mother had been in a different time zone the past couple of months. I’m sure they were more interested in hearing about my job search than defending choices they made 22 years ago.
In response to my question, which I thought would elicit a more dramatic response, my parents simply said in unison, “no.”
“I think it was a happy accident,” my mother said. Here, my father interjected to say that it most definitely was not an accident. “I mean it was an accident in the sense that we thought everyone would be able to pronounce it. But, there was a happy ending. Because no one could pronounce your name, you had to learn to stand up for yourself.”
Independently of Murray, my parents seemed to have come to the same conclusion. We decided that other perks that had come from having such a complicated name included being memorable when networking and never needing to go by my first name and last initial.
Although I thought I knew how I was given the name Sinead, I asked my parents to explain it one more time, for the record. To my surprise, I heard the full story for the first time.
“Our goal at the time was to find a name that would sound the same in Mandarin and English,” my father said. “I only remember that we wanted an English name that everyone could pronounce,” my mother added. “When you were little we didn’t realize how hard your name was to pronounce. It was only until you interacted with others and we saw your experience that we realized how difficult your name was to pronounce for Americans.”
Anticipating my birth, my parents focused primarily on giving me my Chinese name, 之歆 (zhi xin), two characters pulled from ancient Chinese philosophy texts. This was a departure from common Taiwanese naming practices, where a fortune teller would provide name options with the best fortune for the child based on how many brush strokes the characters have. (My parents rejected all of those options, bringing up another concern of mine: am I cursed now?)
My Chinese name, which doesn’t exist on any official documentation, carries multitudes of meanings: “In Chinese it has a lot of meanings using the sound of the characters. It can mean ‘knowing your heart,’” my father explained. My mother chimed in, “it can also mean ‘learning new things.’ The second character, 歆 (xin), has many homophones.” The Chinese love homophones, even building traditions around them, like eating oranges for Chinese New Year because the character for “orange” sounds similar to the character for “luck.”
Given the amount of care they put into my Chinese name, they wanted to honor it through whatever English name they chose. My parents wanted a name that would work cross-culturally, so that whether it was my parents referring to me in Mandarin, my grandparents calling for me in Taiwanese or my friends yelling my name across the hall in English, it would be in essence the same name.
“After we confirmed your Chinese name, 之歆 (zhi xin), we started using the sounds within your name to pick an English name,” my father remembered. “Using 歆 (xin), we thought of Cindy.” Here, all three of us laugh—apparently the consensus then and now was that I couldn’t possibly be a Cindy. The second name, and the one they eventually gave me, was inspired by Sinéad O’Connor.
He didn’t expand on it at the time, but I followed up over text to ask what exactly drew him to the singer. My father explained to me that he wasn’t a huge fan of her music, but admired her as a symbol against traditionalism and conservatism. “For example, I had long hair as a man, but Sinead O’Connor was bold with no hair as a woman.” Although it was poorly documented, cameras being much rarer at the time, my father had shoulder length hair in college—a major shock given that Taiwan was a relatively conservative country at the time.
“What I like are names that are unique. I like names that you can’t just find on the street,” my mother said. “I thought it was cool that I hadn’t heard of the name before, and it was the name of a singer.” At this moment, my father chimed in: “even though she’s a little controversial.” “I think it’s fine!” my mother shushed him.
And it turned out that Sinead was perfect for me in even more ways. My parents explained that if I had grown up in Taiwan, children were commonly given nicknames by taking the second character of their name, in my case it would sound like “sin,” and adding a syllable like “nay” at the end of it. Combining those two parts, you get a nickname like “sin-nay”—which sounds suspiciously like Sinead.
This entire time I had believed myself to be an imposter, undeserving of the name Sinead, when it had been mine in more ways than one all along.
“I’m sorry to put you in this position, but [your name] also tells people about your family. We’re not a typical Asian family, right?” I couldn’t help but interrupt with laughter at my father’s pride. I’m sure he’s not the only Taiwanese-American who is aware of Sinéad O’Connor. But then again, this was exactly what Wattenberg described—my parents saw my naming as an opportunity to showcase their uniqueness as well as mine.
My mother might not have been so explicit in the interview, but I know that she loves my name as well. During the production of Dreamworks’ 2004 movie “Shrek 2,” she put my name down as an employee on the wall of Fairy Godmother’s factory—my favorite movie Easter egg. If that’s not love, then I don’t know what is. (And for the Sineads learning about this now: this Easter egg is for you too.)
An hour later, as I wrapped up my conversation with my parents, I found myself with a newfound appreciation for my name. Not only did my parents find a beautiful Chinese name that carried their hopes and dreams for me, but in giving me the name Sinead, they blessed me with another reminder. As my mother puts it, “we expect you to be yourself. You don’t need to follow Chinese traditions or American traditions… You can be anything.”
Given the discrimination that Asian Americans still face in this country today, perhaps it’s a little naive of her to believe so. Yet I’d like to think that my name is the culmination of a beautiful story of two immigrants who arrived in a new country to start a cross-cultural life. It’s a reminder of where I came from, who I am now and the multitudes I could be in the future. In a sense, I do have what Wattenberg describes as the ultimate American name.
The Final Stage of Grief (Acceptance)
I’ve thought about my name more than I ever have in the past couple of months. Perhaps I’ve avoided this exploration because I hated my name as a child, constantly trying on new aliases that would free me from the burden of Sinead.
“It’s actually just a part of tackling your identity that many of us, if not most, dislike our names at a certain point but then come back around, and in most cases come to like them as adults,” Wattenberg said. “Very few American adults actually change their first names.”
I wasn’t alone in my frustration with my name. Murray remembers taking that same hatred to the extreme. “I decided I wanted to change my name to my middle name, Elizabeth… I asked for it for my 16th birthday, to do the paperwork.” Her father told her to wait until she was 18, and by then, she had fallen back in love with her name.
I have, too. Sinead—music to my ears, when pronounced correctly. At the end of my conversation with Napierski-Prancl, she asked, “Would you claim Sinead again if you could?” and my response was that I couldn’t see myself any other way. This question brought me clarity in a way that no other question has: I’m not a Cindy, and I never have been, because I have always been Sinead.
It’s been my name all along, and I spoke with Murray about finally taking ownership. In other words, correcting people about how my name is pronounced: “I think it’ll be good for you… It’s a way to really assert yourself in a room.”
I think it’ll be good for me, too. I’ve been paying attention now to the way my name follows me around in the world: the cashier at Sweetgreen looking at my name on my vaccine card and saying, “like Sinéad O’Connor!,” an interviewer over the phone admitting that she Googled my name prior to our call and a smile spreading across my face when I notice professors and peers pronouncing my name correctly without my prompting.
It’s a beautiful name made even more so when the world knows the nuance of every syllable. So with newfound vigor, I proceed, raising my hand and firmly declaring, “that’s not how you say my name!”
Oh and to my parents, who poured their dreams and hopes and wishes into the name of their first and only child, thank you, I hope I do it justice.