Do You Like Your Name? — A Writing Challenge

From rejecting my first identity to embracing it proudly

I love my name now.

I used to hate it.

My mother chose it.

Graziella.

Apparently my maternal grandmother wanted me to be named Sonia instead. An international name. A name that works in several cultures. Sonia could totally be Arabic, Jewish, Eastern European, French… almost anything depending on context.

What strikes me is that Sonia would have made my experience very different. Easier.

If I had also inherited my father’s last name, I would have it even more different. My name would have felt like a world away from what it is.

Ironically, I inherited my mother’s French last name, so at least I was not discriminated against on that name in my majority white school in France.

But then there was Graziella.

Which is funny because Graziella is technically European, Mediterranean, even “Catholic-coded.” Many of those kids were Catholic. Still sounded foreign though. It still made people constantly try to place me.

Interestingly, I could easily have been perceived very differently ethnically with another combination.

Sonia + Dad’s last name?

People would immediately assume Arab, Persian, Turkish, Pakistani even, maybe Jewish depending on the context.

Names are strange like that. They shape perception before people even meet you.

Graziella + Mom’s last name

French and possibly Italian, obviously.

French people could never pronounce Graziella correctly and that profoundly annoyed me which is ironic because my French family pronounced it almost perfectly in the Italian way despite not speaking Italian themselves. My mother had clearly studied the original pronunciation before choosing it. There is almost a silent “D” or “T” before the “Z.”

Grazi is my nickname from childhood. From before elementary school where my name was “stained” and my perception of it changed.

Worse: my first school was a majority white elementary school, and my name got me picked on a lot. Some bullies called me Godzilla.

I hated my name so much that from the age of nine to fifteen I used pseudos or some of my middle names. I would pick English sounding names from my favorite shows on TV and decide they would be my new name and my new identity if one day I move to the USA or Australia. I was born in a loving middle class “white” family yet I was so unhappy at school I dreamt of a future I chose, a “better life” in another country.

Even in more “respectful” contexts, people heard the name and immediately decided things about me.

“You’re Italian. Obviously.”

Sure, my father’s affinity with Italian culture influenced the choice. He loves the Italian language and was very attached to his mother’s Italian heritage.

But here’s the thing: Some of his mother’s ancestors who lived in Italy were not simply Italians. They were Jews.

And in my father’s native Tunisia, they were not simply Arab like most Tunisians. They were Jews there too. Some who lived in Tunisia for centuries were probably Amazigh rather than Arab.

Perhaps Italian was just a safer identity than Tunisian as a North African immigrant in France in the 20th century.

So what exactly is the logic of identity?

That contradiction stayed with me for a long time.

What’s even funnier is that Sofia is both Italian/Spanish and Tunisian/Arab/Jewish depending on where you are. And much easier for French people to pronounce. My Mom could have picked Sofia? But not everything is logic. Graziella was my mom’s pick.

One of the rare times I was in my father’s car at six or seven years old. We picked up my half sister. We do not have the same mother, she was significantly older than me and often claimed she was my father’s “only daughter”.

She has a typically Jewish name. Two North African Jewish parents. No ambiguity. I said in front of her “I don’t like my name” I was looking for validation on my name like my father would give me. “Yeah no wonder I always said they’d call her Mozzarella or whatever” my sister said. This made me feel terrible. I was expecting something adult women usually say to me: “No! Why? It’s a pretty name!” Or something like that.

“You reject everything I gave you” my mother would sometimes say. Now remembering her so sad saying that breaks my heart.

I have used Sofia in the Middle East and North Africa. I have also used my father’s last name for the same reason: it felt easier culturally and linguistically.

Now I use both last names / family names because I cannot imagine separating myself from my mother’s last name, my birth name. I also am no longer ashamed of my “white” French heritage like I have been for a long time in my teens onwards, while also wanting to honor my Tunisian heritage — especially since both last names Mom’s and Dad’s ironically mean almost the same thing in two different cultural worlds: French and Arabic/Islamic.

But the conversation about last names is for another time else this will be too long and dilute the point. Right now I will keep the focus on my first name: Graziella.

Graziella seemed to leave nobody indifferent whether people were French or North Africans “It’s so pretty!” they would sometimes say. it seemed people either loved it or hated it.

I actually have Sophie as a middle name, like my mother. So Sofia was not a name I picked randomly.

Funny enough, my fully French white European mother and grandmother both had names that could effortlessly “pass” in the Middle East — Sophie, Suzanne — while I, the one with actual Middle Eastern and North African ancestry, ended up with a name that culturally fit Southern Europe much more than North Africa.

In Morocco, for the first time, locals told my mother I could pass for local. I was thirteen almost fourteen.

My mother replied that it made sense since my father was from North Africa. That was the very first time I felt I belonged in a culture. Or I was finally complete as I always felt I had a “missing piece”

But internally I remember thinking later:

How could I claim North African roots with a name like Graziella?

In France, when for the first time I spoke about my Tunisian background after the Morocco trip, North African kids would ask me if I was Italian instead.

My pale skin and mixed features already made people unsure where to place me. Some North Africans have pale skin too. But it was obviously my name that seemed to confirm I had to be Italian, maybe Spanish, but not really North African.

The strange thing is that I never felt much affinity with Italian or Spanish culture itself, maybe because to me they still felt fundamentally European.

Then I discovered Latin America.

I had resisted learning Spanish, even though it had become part of my school program, I had no interest, until my mother took me to the Dominican Republic on vacation. I was fifteen.

And suddenly, for the first time, both my features and my name made sense together in the same space.

People heard “Graziella” naturally there.

I looked less “out of place.”

Now let’s be honest: I do not look typically Dominican, but for the first time I realized I could easily pass for Puerto Rican, Colombian, Mexican, Cuban.

The way I looked had been a huge source of insecurity in elementary school in my majority white school as even though I am white passing I did not fit the stereotype. And I felt the gendered pressure to be “pretty” . I knew I looked nothing like what the white supremacist standard of what those kids considered pretty.

I fell in love with Spanish. With Latin American culture. With the strange familiarity of hearing a version of myself reflected back socially in a way I had never experienced before.

Still, the contradiction was difficult to hold.

I can pass for Latina.

I have a very Latina-sounding name.

Yet I am not Latina.

And once I became fluent in Spanish, I started feeling like a fraud. School required me to learn Spanish though. Wasn’t I doing what I was supposed to do? I had accidentally made myself almost completely Latina-passing socially. The language made the illusion feel even more complete.

I finally came to accept my name at fifteen because it finally seemed to make sense, even though it did not really.

Because I was not Latina I was French.

And my proximity to whiteness at the time generated guilt: Although I did not have elaborate language for it I knew a “brown” person blends into whiteness does so for survival but how do you justify a “white” person assimilating into a “brown” culture? It is not the same thing. I knew that.

Of course there are many white Latinx people and many of whom are also privileged. In contrast there are many “brown” French people of diverse backgrounds. But French people “of color” usually have typically French names or Arabic or African or even Asian names, not Spanish sounding like mine.

In fact browsing through Skyblogs at the time — French blogs of that era — I on rare occasions saw French teenagers of North African descent sometimes fascinated by Latinamerican culture as much as I was and posting about it. One had “Latina” in her blog title, she was of Algerian or Moroccan descent.

A sort of “Brown unity” gravitating towards other cultures of color. Yet I largely felt “whiter” than them, more privileged and in many ways I was. Despite this I also was harder to read as well with a more hybrid identity so I felt the nuance is not something people can hold so not something I could ever explain. Also if I was closer to whiteness and privilege how could I feel more marginalized? I internalized it as a failure. That caused me shame and distress.

In my last year of high school I also went to a predominantly white school after being home schooled and going to other schools with other demographics. I was so quiet yet everybody would turn heads when I was required to read in Spanish class.

A student whose mother was from Spain disliked me for my fluent Spanish. I could feel her jealousy.

I would speak about Latin America because I was genuinely interested in the culture and wanted to express Spanish is not just Spain. I would keep ambiguity evoking my estranged father’s side. One student once asked me: “So Latin America is your background right?” I stayed evasive.

At the end of the year after stumbling on one of my classmates at the restaurant I worked at after he walked in with his family for dinner we became friendly.

He was one of the few minority kids: Jewish Moroccan.

Once at the end of school year we went out for a drink I explained my background: “I’m not Latina my father is Jewish from Tunisia. I just avoid talking about it. I know I will be read as Latin because of my name, my spanish and my features although I’m tanned you’d be surprise how white I get. Before I spoke spanish people immediately read me as Italian. Jewish identity is not easy especially when you feel outside of it.”

We spoke about what we wanted to do next year after high school, but also about Jewishness, names and skin color: “What’s your father’s last name?” “Oh you can tan dark but you’re white? It’s OK you saw my family, some of my brothers are as white as my Mom and others like me are dark skinned like my Dad”

Ironically, Graziella — with that exact spelling — is actually most common in Brazil. In Spanish-speaking countries, it is usually spelled Graciela.

France has a big Portuguese community especially in the greater Paris where I grew up. Not many attended my school when I was in elementary school, now in my hometown I know of many more kids of the Portuguese community attending this same school. My Mom and I have Portuguese friends in my hometown now and they all react to and pronounce my name naturally.

At nineteen in college, I dropped my name again for “Sofia” in second year. As in first year a Moroccan student once asked me “Why is your name Graziella if you’re of Tunisian descent?”

I was tired of explaining I was French and justify I was indeed of Tunisian descent not Italian or Spanish or Latina. Despite speaking fluent Spanish. Mentionning Jewish heritage was not an option for me back then. I was exhausted to create confusion about surface identity just by existing. Because outside of race/nationality/identity who was I? And who could see it? It seemed nobody.

Until I got to my last year of university, where there were at least five Sophia(s) at my school. Two in my master’s program alone. I decided to embrace Graziella again. Especially because I was back in Europe from the Middle East.

For a long time, my name felt almost like a social projection machine. People heard it and immediately built an entire story around me before I even spoke.

Now in the US people often read me as Latina. I correct them, and I often have to explain the story.

I once met a famous Latin American singer in the hotel I work at. My coworker and I spoke to him, in Spanish. I told him “Your song was one of the first songs in Spanish I learnt. When my Mom took me on trip to DR , I was fifteen. Part of why I speak spanish now. I am from France, my name is Graziella”

He responded “Graciela, Oh from France! Ok! Nice to meet you Graciela… But aren’t you Latina in origin?”

Americans sometimes can pronounce my name, sometimes not or don’t make the effort and call me “Grace” or “Gracie” lol. I just let it be. It’s not uncommon for Spanish names to get Americanized. A Federico I know in the US became “Freddy” there also. I get the same treatment and I am also a Spanish-speaking immigrant, just not Latinx. I just sometimes appear to be and I am fine with it. I no longer think it’s my “fault” or responsibility to make people read or understand my identity accurately.

The best part is I no longer feel compelled to explain the story when I don’t feel like it.

Now I love my name.

Not because it finally “matches” perfectly.

But because I stopped believing identity had to resolve itself into something simple for other people to understand.

My peace and my sense of identity does not depend on people reading me or understanding my identity. In an increasingly mixed culturally blended world, hybrid complex identities are more common as well. It gets “easier” somehow.

I have found Graziella to be all sorts of things: A French author Alphonse de Lamartine’s work who wrote about an Italian young lady and inspired my Mom, that I always knew. But also a bicycle brand in Italy. An Italian restaurant in New York. A few public figures in Brazil.

I remember the childhood bullies now and think “Godzilla” wasn’t as insulting as they intended it to be. Even back then I remember thinking that what they called me represented something very powerful. I should have told them Godzilla could literally eat you or crush you. If I could go back in time I would tell them instead of staying silent.

And now I also love my name because my Mama chose it.

Graziella is her heart. Her creativity. Her choice.

And I would not change it for the world now.

Grazi, the author as a child

Written for #Writingchallenge “Do you Like Your Name”- Sriram Yaladandi , 🌸Preeti Pathak🌸 , Rishita Sharma💗 Thank you for accepting this piece. I hope you enjoy reading it and it resonates with readers! :)

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© Grazi L. S. 2026

Grazi L. S. is a writer and artist exploring identity, trauma, power, migration, language, and belonging through personal essays and fiction.

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This story joins “Do You Like Your Name? — A Writing Challenge” hosted by ***Pen With Paper — Celebrating the first identity we were ever given, the stories our names carry, and the quiet, funny, complicated *ways we learn to grow into them.

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