A name defines who we are. It’s written on our driver’s liscens, school IDs, insurance cards. It’s an automatic link towards yourself. When you think of a person, you think of their name, a set of letters fitted together that essentially represents an entire person. When the first day of school comes around, our names become defined once again as teachers call them forth from a long attendence list. It goes by slowly; the teacher reads through all the familiar names like “Jack” and “Anna” easily and narowly avoids the “Katherine” v.s. “Kate” debacle, but it’s over the more unique names where they find the trouble. But unlike those that proudly state that they’d rather go by “Jenn” than “Jennifer,” I tend to just let it slide by, stating that “it’s fine” or “I don’t mind either.” And it’s true. I don’t mind that my name is pronounced several different ways to the point where some days I’m not even sure of the correct spelling. It’s been that way for almost ten years, and it’s not just been something associated with me. I’ve seen this problem throughout my community, and the truth is that our names define us. They’re an essential part of our lives, made the moment we are born and forever engraved when we are dead. It may not seem important, and it might not even be important. But if we are to have one thing in life, let it at least be our names.