Akuba.
Kehinde.
Yewande.
These are the beautiful African names of women throughout my life who seemed to stand taller – brimming with pride – whenever someone asked them, “What’s your name?”
They didn’t butcher their names into chop suey for the comfort of others’ lazy tongues. When one small-minded woman once asked Kehinde, “Can’t I just call you Kiki?” she replied, “Did I say my name is Kiki? I told you my name is Kehinde.”
Whether Akuba, Kehinde, and Yewande were raised to embrace their non-Anglicized names or had to learn to love the titles given by their West African parents, they strutted the world with coolness and confidence. And I loved that.
Unfortunately, my streak of running into pridefully named West Africans slammed to a screeching halt when I met a 26-year-old Nigerian-born man who came to New York City three years ago to continue his studies in pediatric medicine.
We crossed paths for the first time at one of those social groups on MeetUp.com. He was tall, had a kind face and a sweet smile and – well – attraction sort of pulled us together.
Inevitably, I asked him, “What’s your name?”
He looked down, fidgeted uncomfortably, and hesitated to answer – you would have thought I asked him to massage my feet in the middle of the street!
“You do have a name, right?” I asked sarcastically.
Snapping out of his funk, he finally said, “Yeah. My name’s Ossai.”
I didn’t really think anything of his odd reaction, and I saved his number in my phone as just that – Ossai.
After a few failed attempts at getting together for a date, including torrential downpour for a tennis rendezvous and a poorly planed laser tag appointment, we both just gave up and never saw each other again.
Fast forward to today, nearly two years later, in a twist of fate, he’s popped back up in my life again.
I got a message from a dusky-skinned man on OkCupid who said he’d met me before. “You have?” I asked quizzically. I took a closer look at his photo and then it finally clicked – it’s the guy I met at that MeetUp group.
He told me that he still had my number saved as a contact. “Mind if I text you?” he asked. “Text away!” I replied.
I realized that I, too, still had his number saved on my phone when I received a text with the name “Ossai” emblazoned across my phone screen:
“It’s Raphael,” he said.
No the hell it ain’t! Who the flying rat’s caboose is Raphael?
He had forgotten that he had already revealed his name to me a few years back.
When I confronted him about it, he told me that Raphael is his middle name, but his first name is Ossai.
At first, I bit my tongue because I didn’t want to step on any toes or pinch any nerves, but five minutes into a less-than-interesting conversation about traveling, I couldn’t hold it in anymore: Why does he have a preference for Raphael over Ossai?
Who gives a monkey’s tail about people who are too insular to articulate your precious name? Not to mention I am pretty sure anyone with a well-developed brain can learn to phonetically say “Oh sigh.” Give me a break.
Quite frankly, there’s something really unattractive about a man who veils his name to make the Jacobs feel “comfortable.” And there’s a whole new level of “turn off” when a guy cannot even confidently claim his name to a fellow Black person – me – who wouldn’t give two hoots whether his name is Alan or Ayodele.
Perhaps Ossai was just doing me a phonetic favor, but I got the inkling he wasn’t exactly comfortable with his namesake or sharing it with me. Has this ever happened to you? How do you ladies feel about men who are self-conscious about their uncommon names?
Kimberly Gedeon, the mastermind behind The Melody of Melanin, is a content creator with nearly 2,000 professional articles published online about everything from beauty and business to politics and pop culture. You can say hello to her on Instagram or Twitter – she doesn’t bite!
The post Was He Embarrassed To Tell Me His Nigerian Name? appeared first on MadameNoire.