What's in a Name? My Search for Identity

It was tough growing up with a name like mine. I was teased in elementary school and middle school, because “Yoshie” (YO-she-ay) sounds a lot like “Yoshi,” the green dinosaur from Super Mario World, and my teachers could never pronounce it.I didn’t bother to think about what my name meant. Instead, I daydreamed about having a “normal” name, like Annie or Michelle. I almost resented my name, because it demanded that I be seen. It refused to let me blend into the crowd, and as an adolescent, I wanted to hide in anonymity. We all have that one thing we were born with, a part of our heritage that we can’t shake, but that shapes who we are. How can we make the most of it?A name has so much to do with identity—it’s the first thing you ask when you meet someone new! But you don’t choose the name you grow up with, and I clearly had a hard time with mine. Now that I’m older and I’ve done my research, I’m always very grateful and humbled when I think of the care with which I was named. I no longer shudder when someone has difficulty pronouncing it. Why? My name started to shape who I am today.Things We Didn’t ChooseOur birth names are not the only things that we didn’t choose about ourselves, yet have the choice to live up to. As Father Moon asks us in his autobiography, when there are so many things about our existence that are out of our control, “how can we boast that we are somehow better than others?” (97).Father Moon continues, saying, “Even if we rise to a position higher than others, the honor is only temporary. Even if we gather more possessions than others, we must leave them all behind at the gates of death. Money, honor and knowledge all flow away from us in time, and all disappear with the passing years. No matter how noble and great a person might be, his is nothing more than a pitiable life that will end the moment he loses hold of his lifeline.“Just as we were not born of our own accord, so also we are not meant to live our lives for our own sakes. So the answer to the question of how we should live our lives is simple. We were born of love, so we must live by traveling the path of love.”Today, what I’d ask the kids who teased me long ago is this: “What’s the story behind your name? And what are you going to do to become that person?”Growing Into ItWhen I was born, my parents asked a scholar of Chinese characters to name me. And together with my family name, my name means “blessed with true relationships.”That’s not a bad name to have. I love its uniqueness, and I also think that there is an element of universality to it. I’ve come to think of it as a legacy, something for me to live up to. I feel like it encompasses what my parents hope for me in my life and represents shoes I need to fill.Identity and LegacyI’m struck how, in my case, my identity and the legacy that I’m striving toward are so intertwined. For me, one does not exist without the other. I am who I am because of the things that I cannot control and because of my parents’ hope for me.Our life is short, and there is so much of it that we don’t choose. But I was born to my loving parents, by the grace of God, who had one wish for me: that I fully experience the joy and heartbreak (and everything in between) of love. I didn’t choose this wish, it was chosen for me, but I joyfully embrace it as my own, because I want to be a part of this beautiful legacy of love. This is the heritage that I am a part of and the heritage that I share with you. It is defined in my name, but I think that the hope embedded in my name is the same hope that God, our Heavenly Parent, has for all of us. To squeeze as much love out of our days as we possibly can.