I’m zoned out on a conference call. I’m midway through my summer internship and they’ve tucked me away in the intern cubicle away from the other real adults. I can hardly grasp what’s going on at this place as everyone tosses acronyms around in conversations and scurries down the hall. But, I’m here because money is important and so is whatever career I’m trying to build. Probably in that order.

“Denise? Denise, what do you think?”

A silence dances across the conference call.

“Denise? Are you there?”

The IM box on my computer pops up and startles me. I see what my co-worker typed: “she’s talking to you.”

“Oh, me?” I ask the woman on the phone. “No, it’s Tyece.”

She laughs and I feel as though I’ve missed the joke. I’ve also completely missed her question because I assumed Imaginary Denise would answer it.

I wasn’t there when my parents named me. Well, I was there. But my newborn self did not have a full conversation with them about why they named me what they did. I’ve heard different origins of my name, including that it was the name of one of my dad’s exes. But, that’s one of those family urban legends that no one can seem to confirm.

Nevertheless, I’m sure my parents didn’t consider that as I trotted my way through life, so many people would assassinate the pronunciation of my two-syllable eponym. Tice. Tyree. Tycee. Tyeecee. Tyesha. And, of course, Denise.

When it comes to my name, people approach it a few ways. There are those who just ask me how to pronounce it. I appreciate these human beings on a level they will never understand. After all, if you don’t know, you better ask somebody. Then there are the people who take their best guess and completely butcher it. I want to admire their valiant and confident attempts, but, I just don’t. There are the people who first read my name (cue all the substitute teachers I’ve ever had) and they just stare at it until I call out, “It’s Tyece.” Then they smile bashfully, but never attempt to say it. There are the people who guess and just happen to get it right. Perhaps luck has a way of finding everyone sometimes. Finally, there are the people who would rather shorten my name than try to say it. “Hey, Ty!”

Those people have a special place in the mispronunciation pits of hell.

Calling me Ty is a rite of passage. It’s reserved for my sisters. My parents. My best friend. The men whose sheets I inhabit. You get the point — not everyone can or should call me Ty.

There was once a point in time when I wouldn’t correct people when they mispronounced my name. It put me in this precarious and uncomfortable position to correct senior management at work when they repeatedly called me the wrong name.

Then there was my ex who told me I should go by my middle name, Anita, when applying for jobs in order to remain racially ambiguous. Needless to say, he and I broke up because it’s a bit exhausting to date bigoted assholes. I’m proud of my middle name; it was my grandma’s name and it almost feels like some undeserved honor to have a piece of that. She was this incredible, nurturing and selfless woman whose name carries weight across our family.

But, Anita is not my first name. No matter how racially ambiguous it is. No, it’s Tyece.

Maybe Quvenzhané Wallis helped me gain some cojones after she stood on red carpets among Hollywood elite and declared exactly how to pronounce all four syllables of her name. She equipped me with some courage to tell people, “No, it’s Tyece.”
Because your name is your brand. It’s how you came into this world and it’s how you’ll go out, lest you visit the courts and opt to change it. So, you love it. You embrace it. And, you correct people when they f- it up.

Tyece