Reclaiming the name I was taught to erase.

It started with a small decision. I wanted to add my Vietnamese name to my email signature.

Nguyễn Thị Hương Ly.

It’s a name I used to avoid. One I stopped correcting people on. One, I still need to fill out official forms asking if I have ever gone by another name. It’s the name my family gave me. The name that reflects my cultural heritage. The one that meant I belonged somewhere, among my people. Yet, at school, work, on resumes and emails, it was nowhere to be found.

I was told that names like mine were too hard to pronounce. Too complex. Too foreign. I learned it made people feel uncomfortable. So, I adapted. I chose the name Linda at age 8, after being made fun of at school. Two years later, I legally became Linda when I became a Canadian citizen.

I became Linda, not because I didn’t like Hương Ly. I did because back then, survival meant choosing acceptance. For a long time, I thought that’s just what you had to do. But now, I’m putting Hương Ly back where she belongs. Not because I want people to call me that, I still go by Linda. But because I want people to see her, sitting quietly in my signature next to the “professionalism” that once left her out.

This is reclamation. This is refusing to hide. It’s honouring the kid who braced herself during attendance. The teen who just wanted to fit in. The woman who is building a practice for misfits like her. I added my Vietnamese name because I want to. Because I can. Because I’m tired of people who tried to erase us.

If it looks out of place to some, so be it. Hương Ly was never meant to blend in, she was meant to come back home. And now she has.