“With that comes a long history of people rejecting their Christian names, such as Muhammad Ali,” Adi said. “Reclaiming names is about power,” said Hakim Adi, a professor of African history, highlighting that during the period of slavery, names were taken away to dehumanise people. At the height of the black power movement in the 1960s, many made a political statement by rejecting European names. People changing their name to reclaim identities was nothing new, Vernon added. “If you’re a prime minister or a royal, that’s your name, people have to respect it. He said people made a conscious effort to learn the names of those in positions of power but did not apply this enough in day-to-day life. “The fact that people still feel they have to change or anglicise their names, and water down their heritage to fit in or succeed within the dominant culture, says we’ve still got a long way to go.” Names are important and they have meaning, said the cultural historian and campaigner Patrick Vernon, whether that is familial significance or the time or day someone was born, for example. “They decided on the blandest name possible – literally – to ensure their survival,” he wrote. “Every name tells a story – and I want mine to give a more complete picture of who I am.”īoulos’s grandparents, who came to Britain in the 1920s, had chosen the surname Bland because they feared using the Jewish-Germanic family name “Blumenthal”. The Bland name had masked important aspects of his identity that he had downplayed as a child, not wanting to be seen as in any way “different”, including his Coptic faith, Boulos said. Photograph: Ben Evans/Huw Evans/Rex/ShutterstockĮarlier this year, the BBC presenter formerly known as Ben Bland changed his surname to Boulos to celebrate his maternal Sudanese-Egyptian heritage, as well as distinguishing himself from another journalist of the same name. He told the Cardiff Blues Podcast: “I know the international games are seen worldwide, so I just wanted to pay respect to my family and my Tongan heritage, using my name properly.” So I just wanted ‘Taulupe’ on my jersey, because it’s my name.”Īnother player, who went by Willis Halaholo, recently changed his name on the Wales team-sheet for the Six Nations to Uilisi Halaholo in recognition of his full name, Sean Alfred Uilisi Halaholo. He told the BBC: “Since my first cap it’s been ‘Toby Faletau’ and ‘Toby’ is not really anything to do with me, it’s just a name I kind of made up. In 2017, the Tonga-born rugby player Taulupe Faletau, who grew up in Wales with the nickname Toby after school friends struggled to pronounce his name, requested that his squad name be recorded accurately. Over the years, others have publicly restored their birth names after reaching a certain stage of their careers. The actor previously known as Tanya Fear tweeted: “My full name is Tanyaradzwa~ which means ‘we have been comforted’, I was named this because I was born the year my grandfather died.” Her stand prompted a conversation about the power of names and has inspired others to reclaim theirs. Newton has reclaimed the original spelling of her first name.
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