It’s a bright Monday morning in a third-grade classroom. Students are shuffling in, buzzing about lunch and recess, thrilled to see their teacher out for a three-day weekend and a substitute in charge. For most of the class, it’s a win. For one student, it’s anything but.

The student sits at a desk, nose buried in a book, seeking a brief escape during attendance, though their ears are on alert for one thing: their name, and more importantly, how it will be pronounced.

When the name before theirs is called, a pause in the substitute’s voice sends a familiar chill.

The student keeps their head down, bracing for a familiar sting, while a class full of third graders waits for the stumble they’ve learned to expect.

“Is it Mee.. Mya? Mia? Uh… Mial.. Mialour..??”

A few students giggle. The silence stretches just enough to make the moment feel bigger than it should.

The student’s face reddens. Their grip tightens on the book, though they’re no longer reading. For some, it’s a small mistake. For others, it’s a daily reminder of how easily they can feel out of place. Even the excitement of recess can’t erase the sting of hearing their name turned into something unrecognizable.

“My name is Mialourdes,” the student finally says quietly.

The substitute quickly nods, relieved to move on. The class continues, but the moment lingers.

I was that student. My name is Mialourdes, me-ah-lor-dis. Ten letters. Four syllables.

For years, moments like this followed me from classroom to classroom. On the first day of school, during attendance, at ceremonies, even at doctors’ offices, my name would cause hesitation. It was paused, reshaped into something easier, something more familiar, something that wasn’t quite me. Sometimes, it wasn’t attempted at all, just spelled out instead.

My name, however, was never meant to be easy or familiar. It was meant to mean something.

My parents immigrated from Italy and chose my name to reflect our roots. Part of my name, Lourdes, carries religious and historical significance, derived from the famous Catholic pilgrimage site in France. According to Gretchen Filz’s “The Story of St. Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes,” found on the Catholic Company blog, 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous reported 18 apparitions of the Virgin Mary in 1858 at the Massabielle Grotto.

Mialourdes is not only tied to history, but also to ideas of faith, healing, and connection, as reflected in the millions who have visited Lourdes each year to pray, bathe in its waters, and seek physical and emotional renewal. Despite this meaning, my name often felt like a barrier growing up, shaped by repeated mispronunciations and the discomfort that followed whenever it was spoken aloud.

Yet, this experience is not unique. Research suggests that approximately 71% to 75% of individuals with non-Western or ethnically distinct names report frequent mispronunciation. One study, “Say My Name: Understanding the Power of Names, Correct Pronunciation, and Personal Narratives,” from the National Library of Medicine notes that “the chronic mispronunciation of names can undermine one’s identity and be experienced as a microaggression."

These name-based microaggressions refer to subtle, often unintentional behaviors that frame culturally, ethnically, and racially distinct names as difficult, unfamiliar, or less worthy of careful attention.

This pattern can be further understood through how memory functions. Learning names requires attention, repetition, and prior exposure. Dr. Marie-Therese Claes, in her article on “Why a Mispronounced Name can be so Frustrating” in Psychology Today, explains, “Our mind creates associations between certain well-known concepts, meaning that it’s easier to remember a name if we have heard it before.” In other words, names that are less frequently encountered or that do not fit familiar patterns may require greater cognitive effort to encode and recall.

This additional processing can contribute to the repeated mispronunciation or avoidance of such names. According to their study, “Enduring Effects: Name Mispronunciation and/or Change in Early School Experiences,” from the Journal of Teaching and Learning, Bonkia Sok and Tina Bonnett found that many individuals choose to rename themselves or shorten their names when immigrating to North America. I did the same, shortening my name to “Mia,” a name that flows more easily.

By choosing to shorten my name, daily interactions became easier, but I lost something subtle in the process. “Mia” allowed me to move through spaces without hesitation or correction, yet it also distanced me from the history and meaning embedded in my full name. Over time, I began to understand that what seemed like a simple adaptation was also a quiet negotiation of identity.

As I continued to grow and found myself surrounded by individuals who took the time to pronounce my name correctly, I began to take pride in it. My name carries history, identity, and cultural meaning, and in learning to embrace it, I also began to reclaim a part of myself. The same name that once made me brace for hesitation in a third-grade classroom is now something I no longer wish to shorten. Instead, I have learned to hear it differently, not as a barrier, but as a reflection of who I am.