“The name is ‘Mamdani’. M. A. M. D. A. N. I. You should learn how to say it, [...].” New York’s Mayor Zohran Khwame Mamdani, who has Indian roots, was celebrated on a global platform for correcting his opponent during a debate, who had been deliberately mispronouncing Mamdani's name. The soundbite was embellished with music and took social media by storm.
Was this reaction a manifestation of a diaspora generation that is tired of compromising on their own names?
I was born and brought up in Austria, and for years, I accepted whatever way my name was pronounced. On the rare occasion that someone would actually apologise for butchering it, especially my surname, I would deflect with a joke, “I don’t pronounce it correctly myself”, and this was true to some extent.
I had adopted a Germanised version of my family name without being actively aware of it myself. In my early twenties, a fellow Indian colleague found my Facebook profile and only then realised my Indian background. Apparently, I had mangled my name in a way, while introducing myself, that she didn’t catch on at first. That was the first time I was made aware that I wasn’t pronouncing my family name in the original way.
Last year, in a university seminar, a professor always read out everyone's full names when announcing the next group’s presentations. When she got to my name, she would say “Rubi…”, then there was always a pause.
She would look at the letters in front of her, and decide that it wasn’t worth her time and energy to figure out what sounds she should assign, and she would just cut herself off, look at us, and tell us to start with our presentation. I taught her how to pronounce my name several times, and I would have been open to teaching her even more times, but she never asked me; she just simply decided it wasn’t worth the effort.
Studies show that people with foreign-sounding names quickly learn to avoid "awkwardness" by adapting: they present an easier pronunciation or stop correcting mistakes altogether, because they want the other person to feel comfortable and move on.
Similar anecdotes reached me when I asked fellow diaspora members to share their experiences with me. Most of them have given up on expecting the right pronunciation.
My parents saw this coming. They initially wanted to name me Rubinder, but worried how it would be mispronounced or shortened, so they chose Rubi Rubinder as my official legal name. Still, in rural Austria, even ‘Rubi’ stands out. Whenever I introduced myself, I would be asked if I had a simpler nickname.
My siblings are confronted by the same confusion, with their carefully curated names. This compromise is reflected in research: parents in intercultural families try to balance heritage and society by choosing one heritage name and one “international” or local name, or they choose names that can travel across languages.
Some people who sent in their stories to me expressed the same thought: if they ever have children, they would choose “international” names so that the countries their kids grow up in won’t make it harder for them to fit in.
Names are often the very first linguistic element used in an interaction, and they function as initiators that already carry assumptions about identity and belonging into a conversation.
When the opposite refuses to even try, that refusal doesn't just reflect a difficulty in pronunciation. It sends a message about whose identities are worth the work of getting it right.
Several journalistic investigations and studies show that people with foreign names are less likely to be invited to housing viewings or interviews, even when their socioeconomic status, income, or CVs are equivalent to those of native applicants
Between nicknames and misnamings
Once I began collecting experiences from the South Asian diaspora in German-speaking countries, I noticed similar patterns emerge. Most of them have given up explaining how their names are pronounced.
“I just want to avoid the awkwardness of repeating my name five times,” says Ravneet, who has grown accustomed to people calling her “Rafnet”; to friends, she offers the nicknames “Rafi or Ravi”. Ambika was surprised that people in Austria struggled with her name; classmates quickly assigned her the nickname “Bambi”, which she accepted.
When someone now says her name is “too difficult”, she automatically offers “Bambi” as an alternative—unless the other person decides to rename her, as when someone said, “I can’t pronounce that, I’m just going to call you Anita.”
Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen too rarely. Once, a colleague was going through cover letters we had received; upon seeing one by someone named ‘Mohammad’, she immediately tossed it in the dustbin. Another colleague laughed at this gesture but pulled it back out and said something along the lines of, “Unfortunately, we can’t do that. I heard he’s one of the best candidates who applied.”
Upon which the first colleague unwillingly surrendered and said something like, “Ok, but I’m not going to pronounce that name, I’ll just call him Julian.” I must admit, this is only one of many such experiences I’ve had.
Studies from Sweden and Norway show that younger generations often prefer the adapted pronunciation or a nickname in majority-language contexts, not because they value their heritage less, but because they see it as more practical and less exhausting.
At the same time, many describe their legal name as central to their sense of self, which makes the constant juggling of versions and nicknames emotionally draining.
Who needs this performance of assimilation most? I would argue that politicians do, because in politics, names become branding.
In the US, several politicians of South Asian descent have publicly built careers under smoothed-out or anglicised versions of their names: Nimrata Randhawa is known to the public as Nikki Haley, Rohit Khanna as Ro Khanna, Amerish Bera as Ami Bera, and Piyush Jindal as Bobby Jindal.
In The Politics of deracialisation, Krishnan Shyam Sriram argues that such nicknames help candidates appear less “foreign” and more relatable in low-information elections, signalling ethnicity or the lack thereof.
The experiences people shared with me do not only take place in classrooms, with colleagues, or among friends. They also surface when dealing with authorities and institutions.
One community member from Germany wrote to me about her father, who was officially registered with a misread initial, so that “Jai” became “Tai”; his surname was assumed to be Singh, which isn’t his real surname, but because of a language barrier, he accepted this until years later, his children were able to correct it.
Similarly, my father was instructed to drop “Singh” from his name to obtain Austrian citizenship. This isn’t rare: across Europe, migrants often see their names simplified or misspelt in official records, as systems can’t handle certain letters or diacritics, or because clerks “simplify” names.
Our identity is tied to the sound of our names
In Sweden, Muslim immigrants have chosen new, more Swedish-sounding names to de-emphasise their ethnic and religious origin. When asked about the reasons behind such decisions, those applicants named a desire to disassociate from Islam and Arabs, or said that their name seemed to cause discomfort or offence.
One anecdote that reached me was about someone whose first name is Mohammad, but he has a second (less Muslim-sounding) name. Mohammad lives in Germany and only introduces himself with his second name, since he feels that introducing himself as ‘Mohammad’ has resulted in him having to deal with uncomfortable situations.
Several journalistic investigations and studies show that people with foreign names are less likely to be invited to housing viewings or interviews, even when their socioeconomic status, income, or CVs are equivalent to those of native applicants.
According to paired ethnic testing done by the Austrian ‘Equal Treatment Union’, a foreigner was treated worse in 62% of his calls than his Austrian counterpart.
Due to structural discrimination in the housing market, people with a migrant background are often forced into precarious and exploitative living conditions. Although discrimination is prohibited by law, the difficulty lies in proving that one has been discriminated against.
In addition, any legal action that could be taken involves a significant amount of time and high costs, which deters most people from reporting cases at all.
“Compromise karna padta hai”
When I talked to my father about all this, whose real name is Jarnail, though in Austria everyone has always called him “Jelly”, he said he accepted it very quickly and doesn’t mind much.
He’s been living in Austria for 47 years, yet no one knows his real name. His best friend was “Michael Uncle” to us for decades; only a few years ago did I learn that his actual name was Gurdev.
Many aunties and uncles from that first generation of South Asian migrants in Austria and Germany carry a parallel, white-friendly name in public while their birth names live mostly within the community, if at all. This is not unusual; research suggests that first-generation migrants often adapt more quietly and accept official changes or misalignments as the price of staying.
Second-generation children, who were born and raised within the “host” society and its rights discourse, are more likely to insist on the integrity of their names. That resonates with what Gursimran told me: she offers “Simi” in German-speaking contexts, but insists on the full, correctly pronounced name when talking to other desi people.
She emphasised that our identity is tied to the sound of our names, which is why it can be confusing to struggle with balancing different pronunciations and nicknames.
I’ve heard of families that were somewhat coerced into giving at least one of their kids a German-sounding name. Most of the time, those kids end up using one version of their names in public and another at home—a split familiar to South Asians balancing identity and belonging.
This adds another layer to the already existing identity crisis that can stem from juggling cultures, languages, and expectations.
Jasvinder has had different names assigned to her all her life. Being named “Jaisy” as her first official name, people still get confused by this unique spelling and often refuse to accept her way of pronouncing it.
“It’s just pronounced like ‘Jessy’ [...] But people always seem to know better than me what my name is [...] even if I correct them, they don’t accept it, even teachers.”
The struggle of holding people accountable to pronounce their names correctly is evident across the board. Many of the people I spoke to now expect their names to be mispronounced and offer nicknames upfront, so they don’t create a barrier, and everyone can stay comfortable.
However, most of them have highlighted that this juggling of names and having to put up a fight has had an impact on their identity and self-perception.
Mamdani's reaction resonating with so many diaspora members shows that the moment was about more than pronunciation because it revealed how names become battlegrounds for belonging.
It does seem that the second-generation South Asian diaspora is more sensitive to this level of othering than the previous generation—maybe this stems from a place of privilege that we are born with, but our parents had to fight for.
Or in other words: my generation probably has the comfort to even think about these things that our elders see as rather trivial. The fact is, we all have learned to live with names reshaped for the comfort of others.