00:00I will say that with white people I definitely make it a point to make sure
00:04they know how to pronounce my name just because like it's not that difficult
00:09you know. When you're African there's so many positive stereotypes that come
00:14with your name versus like when you're black American. I don't use the rest of
00:17that because I do feel like it automatically says you're female and
00:22you're black. My name is Kalia Isabella Underwood. My full name is Nana Amma
00:27Sapoma Adjuwai. My French just call me Nana. My name is Larissa Nicole Papillon. I am
00:33Creole and my last name means butterfly in French. Kalia means bridge between the
00:38sun and the moon in Swahili. Amma the second part of my name means Saturday.
00:43If you were if you're Ghanaian and you were born on a Saturday they call you Amma.
00:47I was named after my grandmother. I've always gone by like Rissa. I feel like
00:53it's a more racially ambiguous name. My father has even gone to the point where
00:58he's like don't go by Larissa at all. Go by Nicole. You'll sound very white. You'll
01:02sound very like an upstanding citizen. If you go by Nicole Papillon no one can place you.
01:06When I was younger it was tough because people didn't know how to pronounce it or
01:10people would make fun of it. I had a co-worker who called me Kalia for almost six
01:15months. When I was down to Amma people be like where are you from? Ew! Like so I was
01:20always judged and I hated that. I really really hated that. Kale, Kahaley, Kayla, Kalayla, Kahula.
01:29Although my name is Nanama all my friends really just call me Nana and people still
01:34can't get that right so they call me Nana. I don't get why I'm like it's Nana it's
01:39pretty simple and then they all once they find out it's Nana they're like oh Nana Nana. Thanks
01:44you ruin my whole name. Appreciate it. Kiki, do you love me? When people pronounce my name
01:50wrong it's actually understandable. I just nicely correct them like hey it's
01:56Nana Amma. I just think that it's common courtesy to pronounce a name the way it's
02:01supposed to be pronounced. My name has been pretty beneficial in the workplace.
02:04People are like oh she's ethnic you know like we want her here we want an
02:08African woman here versus like if my name was something else that a lot of people
02:12might target or or correlate with being ghetto they might not even want to review
02:17my application. Honestly they don't even know if I'm a male or female sometimes.
02:20When I was looking for like fast food jobs or retail jobs I just had the fear
02:24that you know my application would kind of be put to the side because my name is
02:29so ethnic. So I think that I'm fortunate because you know I'm in a creative
02:33industry. My dad up until this day has a grudge against why I only go by Nana like
02:41on all of my bylines he's like that's not your name. I'm like it is my name. So we
02:46still have this like constant back and forth between like I need to go by Nana
02:50Amma or I need to go by Nana. And now that I'm growing up I kind of see his side
02:55to
02:55the story. I kind of do think that it's respectful of my culture and of my family
03:00to go by my whole first name. I think my name is definitely black sounding and
03:04that's why I love it. Like it's part of my culture. I love my name now. I love that I
03:10am Nana Amma Sakoma as part.
