What My Name Says About Who I Am
Name changes can be an act of self-preservation and confirmation in how we show up in the world — and on paper
I became Mia Nakaji Monnier in college. I didn’t change my name so much as reveal more of it. While I’d always gone by Mia Monnier before then, the rest of my name appeared on all of my official documents: Mia Gabrielle Nakaji Monnier, a combination of Japanese and French, reflecting both of my parents. In college, I learned that my face alone rarely said enough about who I was. On campus in Vermont, a White roommate asked why I “acted more Asian” than I was. Studying abroad in Kyoto, I felt like crying with gratitude anytime someone recognized me as haafu, mixed-race Japanese, the daughter of a Japanese mother.
I learned to supplement my face with as much information as possible—constant preemptive disclaimers. When people accepted my words without surprise or scrutiny, I was relieved, but I also felt selfish and needy, taking up so much time to explain myself. Adding Nakaji into my public name was meant to be a shorthand, a clue that might save me the trouble, at least when I applied to jobs at Asian American nonprofits or wrote an article justifying my own identity.
Now, more than a decade later, I’m engaged to a man whose race I recently realized I…
