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00:00Hi, I'm Kumi Taguchi on this episode of Insight, how names shape our lives.
00:06I hated my name growing up. Really? Yeah. I have many school certificates and emails
00:12addressed to a middle-aged Mexican man named Juan. I actually take a lot of pride in my name.
00:19C-A-O-I-M-H-E. Well, my license arrived in the mail and I cried. I literally had
00:26to change,
00:27changed the world for my name. I'm the fun, lovable opposite to Karen from Brighton.
00:33So you're not speaking to the manager? Never speaking to the manager.
00:39Thank you so much for being here. Stephen, you share your surname with a well-known figure.
00:45What is your full name? Stephen Trump. When did you first realise you had a name that attracts
00:51a bit of attention? The first time was when I was on a ship going around the Hawaiian Islands
00:58and it was when the election was on between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. We went on there thinking,
01:07is this guy going to become president? I don't think so. We got on the boat. They found out my
01:13name was Trump and I was looked after. Oh, come and have a drink, Mr. Trump. I loved it. I
01:23loved it.
01:25Does your name still get a reaction 10 years later? Every time. Really? Every time. If I go and buy
01:31something and I walk up and I give my name, I get the same reaction. Silence, a little smirk and
01:39a little
01:39giggle. What do people say if they say anything? Oh, are you related? Really? Yes. Can you tell
01:45fans from foes? Because I've got this attitude that I think it's fun, I don't get foes. Really? I get
01:53people that want to join in and have fun. I get people that come out and say they love him
01:59and then
02:00you hear people say, no, I don't like him. And I go, oh, okay. Do you know of any other
02:06Trumps in
02:07Australia? I know of one. I was down in Corowa and someone said, oh, we've got a Trump in town.
02:13And I said, where? I've never heard of another Trump in Australia. And they told me, I said,
02:19give me her phone number. Oh, I won't do that. So I went into the white pages and there she
02:24was.
02:25So I rang her up and I said, it's Stephen Trump. She said, what? And she said, where are you?
02:31I told her
02:31where I was. We'll be there in 10 minutes. And we met and discovered that we had the same great,
02:38great, great, great grandparents. Wow. Is it possible you're related to President Trump?
02:45We came from Dorset in England and I've connected with Trumps that are there. And they say we came
02:53from Germany in the 14th century and then we came from the same area of Germany that he came from.
03:00But that's it. Our next guest found support among other people who share her name and they still
03:07managed to turn heads. Two and a half years ago, I was diagnosed with bilateral breast cancer.
03:15My mental health was quite low. I was spiralling down. I knew I needed to connect back with people.
03:24So I came to walk it off and I arrived and within 15 minutes, there were three other women with
03:30the
03:30same name as my own. There's this certain notoriety of having my name, especially in the internet world.
03:39Your name's synonymous with this type of person that complains, that wants to talk to the manager,
03:46needs to talk to the manager immediately. Order your coffee with it. And then watch the reactions.
03:53I always put Fiona. Do you? I know someone who actually changed their name when they ordered food.
04:00It's comforting to know that I'm not the only one who feels this way. So the conversation around
04:04my name and the other ladies' names was a source of amusement, but it's also a source of derision.
04:09In the group, we've learned to rise above it. Now we laugh about it. We really laugh.
04:15Hi, I'm Karen. Hi, I'm Karen. We are the Karens.
04:24Karen, what's it like being called Karen these days?
04:28Oh gosh, I wish I was over it. I wish it was gone and dusted, but it began during Trump's
04:33first
04:34presidency. And then because of COVID, it just took off again. And the memes, the memes now,
04:42Philly's Karen, which was about the Karen who took the baseball off the kid in a baseball game in
04:49America. So it's become a real identity that people first assume when you actually meet for the very,
04:58very first time.
04:58Yeah.
04:59Have you ever used a different name, like buying a coffee, for example?
05:02Just like the first speaker here tonight, you know, the moment that you say your name,
05:06there is a slight downing of the smile of the barista or whatever. And people turned around
05:14and had a look. And because of my height and how I look, there's this certain judgment about what it
05:21is. Are you kind, Karen? Or are you one of those complaining Karens? I actually put down my lat sometimes.
05:28Basically, the surname of the serial killer, Ivan Malat.
05:32Yes, I have done that.
05:34And was that better to put Malat than Karen?
05:36Actually, only heads turned of a certain age. Whereas the younger crowd, it's done and dusted
05:44with them. So they're forgotten. Whereas the Karen, you know, we almost are certainly serial killers
05:49in some people's eyes.
05:51Would you rather be a Karen or a Trump?
05:54A Karen any day.
05:58You were born in the 70s.
06:01Yes, I was.
06:01Has your given name always had connotations?
06:04The year I was born, Karen was the second most common name for girls. And growing up,
06:09I was in a class of 28. And there were three of us. It would have been until 2016 that
06:15things
06:16changed. And that changed very quickly. And it was largely due to social media, the internet,
06:21things like an NRMA, a Facebook page. I was suddenly, if I made a comment, oh,
06:26you're just a Karen. You know, it was so quick.
06:29Let's take a look at some of those who have been dubbed Karens online.
06:33Karen from Brighton shot to infamy after complaining about lockdown walks around her
06:38beachside suburb.
06:39Well, you get sick of walking the same streets.
06:42I, you know, I've done, I've done all of Brighton.
06:45They think we all know a Karen in our lives.
06:47Excuse me.
06:50What do you want?
06:50Excuse me.
06:51And I can have you sued personally.
06:54I'm going to tell them there's an African-American man threatening my life.
06:57Karen, how does it feel to have your name become a term for such bad behaviour?
07:02And a source of derision, yeah. I've recently done my CV and I'm scared to put it in and think,
07:08what are these people, you know, are they immediately going to assume that I'm that type
07:11of Karen or they're never. You are your name and it is synonymous with part of you. So yeah,
07:17having to actually explain that my, my situation is difficult. Yeah.
07:24Richard, you're here as your drag persona, Karen from finance. What kind of Karen are you?
07:30Well, I'm a great Karen. I'm like the kooky, fun, lovable auntie Karen that turns up too early
07:37at a party with last night's leftover cheese and leaves a little too late and drinks everybody's
07:42wine. But I'm the fun, lovable opposite to Karen from Brighton.
07:46So you're not speaking to the manager?
07:47Never speaking to the manager.
07:49You chose your stage name before the Karen meme. How did you come up with your character?
07:54I came up with the idea and the character of Karen from finance long before I even started
07:59thinking about doing drag. I, um, as a young queer kid, my friends and I,
08:04we were out at a thrift store one day before we were going to a party later that night. We
08:07found these
08:08old gaudy 80s prom dresses on the rack. And we thought, let's buy them and wear them to the
08:13party. And a few drinks in, I think we were sitting on garbage bins in someone's front yard in Fitzroy.
08:18And we were coming up with characters or the idea of the women that would have bought these dresses
08:22when they were brand new. And I decided that my lady was fun, loving, middle aged, Karen,
08:28worked in finance. And then when I did drag for the first time, my friend said, well, who are you?
08:33And that character name was the first thing that came out of my mouth.
08:35Did the meme affect you after it first took off?
08:38Yeah. I didn't really pay much attention to it until COVID lockdowns. As a drag queen and a cabaret
08:45performer, we were the first to lose our jobs. We couldn't go performing. We couldn't go touring
08:49anymore. So I was actually living back in my parents' house with my ex-boyfriend at the time,
08:53no work, really depressed. And then this Karen thing took off and it was torturous. And I thought,
09:00not only have I lost my work, but even if the lockdowns end, how am I going to go back
09:05out into
09:05the real world and present myself as a Karen, people are going to have different ideas of
09:09who they think I am. Does the Karen meme still affect your show now?
09:14Not so much. I think that I really empowered myself through lockdown and coming out of lockdown
09:19and found a way to manipulate the meme and manipulate the joke. I think there was a little
09:25bit of responsibility that I felt in there for people with the birth name Karen. And I think I
09:30really just needed to change the script and find a way to change the idea of who a Karen is
09:35and show that
09:35not all Karens want to speak to the manager. We can be fun, lovely, gorgeous community people.
09:40Do you have Karens in your audience? Oh my gosh. Yeah. All the time, like shockingly so.
09:48I've written into my shows now that I kind of do a call out. I say, do we have a
09:52Karen in the
09:52audience tonight? And always someone's squealing up the back and I say, what do you do for a living?
09:56And she's saying, we work in finance. And I find out, you know, after the show when I'm meeting the
10:01audience that usually, yeah, they find out that, like, I'm in town and they've heard that, yeah,
10:06Karen from finance is here and the whole office gets together and take her out for a night out. It's
10:10really cute. Stephen, do you see the humour in having a surname like Trump? Did you hear that Donald
10:18Trump wants to ban shredded cheese? He wants to ban shredded cheese? He wants to make America great again.
10:23No. So yes, I do. So you take full advantage of your name? All the time. Build jokes onto it?
10:31Yes.
10:32Do you have any other good jokes? You heard what happened to him when he got shot the other month.
10:38Security guard ran up to her and grabbed him and pulled him down and said, Mickey Mouse,
10:41and then walked away. And they said to him later, what did you say Mickey Mouse for? He said,
10:46oh, sorry, I meant to say Donald Duck. So it sounds like your surname has given you this whole extra
10:58layer to your life in the last 10 years. Yes. It's been great. Do you know, you felt people turned
11:06your name into a joke when you were younger. How did you respond? So my first name is Juna and
11:13my surname
11:13is zoo. So that can translate to tuna zoo or smelly fish living at a zoo. So I would always
11:23get kids
11:26saying bad things about my name or joking about it. And when these things are said to you repetitively
11:32over and over again, it really chipped away at my confidence. And from a very young age,
11:38I wanted to work in the media industry as a news anchor or a TV producer. And I will turn
11:46the TV on
11:47and it will be predominantly Anglo people on screen at that time. And so the hopes of ever achieving
11:56that dream, being Asian and having an Asian name just seemed like a far cry.
12:03Hi. Your name is also often misspelt. What's that like for you?
12:09Yes. So I have received so many variations of my name, Jula, Juno, Gina, literally everything besides
12:20Juno, despite it being in my email address and signature.
12:26You've even got a male name there. Yes. So I have many school certificates and emails
12:33addressed to a middle aged Mexican man named Juan. Many. I think that's the most common one just
12:41because like autocorrect as well, corrects it too. Juan, even my own phone does.
12:48I think the worst one though was a few years ago, I stumbled across my brother's birth certificate
12:55and I saw that my name was spelt Tuna. Really?
12:59And this is a legal document.
13:02Katherine, you started using a new name after finishing high school. What was it about Katherine
13:07that stood out to you? Well, it resonated and I needed a name that was going to
13:17give me strength to navigate the difficult journey that lay ahead. And my name, Katherine,
13:25has served me very well. I may not have looked like Katherine in the beginning, but I certainly
13:32grew into my name. Why didn't you look like Katherine in the beginning? Oh, because I transitioned.
13:38So you were born a boy and you wanted a name that suited who you wanted to be. Correct.
13:45How did you choose Katherine? Well, there was a girl in high school that I didn't like very much,
13:53but the teacher used to say Katherine all the time. And I used to hear the name and I think,
14:00oh, that sounds really lovely. Oh, that sounds really pretty. And it was also strong. I knew that
14:06I'd need a strong name that was feminine and strong. Is there anyone in your family who has the name
14:13Katherine? Yes. Yes. I actually named myself for her. In Fijian, we call, when you're named for
14:23someone, it's Yadha. And when you call a child after a Yadha, you hope that they will embody their spirit.
14:33Oh. And my auntie, Katarina, she married into my family. So I'm from an Anglo-Fijian family,
14:42and she was full Fijian. And my family never spoke Fijian at home, only the best British. And she refused.
14:52She said, no, I am in Fiji. I will speak Fijian. And then one day she came to Australia for
15:01my
15:01great-grandmother's 80th birthday. And she spoke to me in the worst English I'd ever heard. And I was
15:09like, and I said, no, no, just speak Fijian. She said, no, I am in Australia. I will speak English.
15:14And so she spoke to me in terrible English. And I spoke to her in terrible Fijian. And I think
15:23that's when I decided that she would be my Yadha. Wow. Sonia, you're a baby name consultant.
15:31What does that involve? I help parents all over the world who are having trouble naming their child.
15:39That can be a child that's coming. Sometimes it's renaming children as well.
15:45How does the process work? So I have social media platforms so people can kind of get a gauge of
15:50what my style, taste, preference is. And if they go of that, they go on my website. There's a form.
15:55They tell me what their style is, if there's any family names that they want to honour, if there's
16:01anything to steer clear, if there's anything really wild and niche. At the moment, I've got a consultation
16:05which says Patagonia Midwest. So I'm from New Zealand and don't wear Patagonia and I'm not
16:12from the Midwest. So I really have to step into parents' world. Why do parents use your service,
16:18do you think? Being a mum myself and going through pregnancy, I realise there's very little that you
16:24can control when you're pregnant. And the name is something that you have not total control of
16:30because it's not about you. It is about your child at the end of the day. And everyone is going
16:34to have
16:34an opinion. But it's one of those things that you can kind of steer a little bit more.
16:38We've been hearing about how names impact our lives. What's in a name?
16:43It's the first thing that you give your child. It is the first bit of their story. And I think
16:49part
16:50of their name is also realising that you have to let it go with them. And it's something, in my
16:55own
16:55experience, realising that one day it might not be their name as well. Their name can grow,
16:59their name can change. So you have to give it as a gift.
17:04Did you like your name? I hated my name growing up.
17:07Really? Yeah, I hated my name. It just, no one else had my name. So I grew up in the
17:1190s,
17:12there were those personalised cups and mugs and hairbrushes everywhere. Everyone was a Sarah,
17:17an Amy or a Jessica, and I sounded middle-aged.
17:23Kuiwame, you've been living in Australia for about a year. What responses have you had to your name
17:28since you moved here from Ireland? Mainly shock or confusion, a lot of interest. I feel like people,
17:36thankfully I've had quite a positive response to my name. I can't really say that there's been much
17:41negativity. But yeah, I feel like it's mainly just people saying what and being quite confused.
17:48How do you spell Cuiwame? C-A-O-I-M-H-E. In Ireland we have our own language and
17:57that is the Irish
17:59spelling. So I think a lot of people get confused. They think that's English letters, but it's actually
18:04a whole other language. So yeah, I get everything but that, obviously.
18:13What do you get on your coffee cup when you put an order in?
18:19Quiver, Jimmy, Xiaomi, Commie, Cammy, everything but the right spelling. And if I do get the right
18:28spelling, I'm like, this is what to say. I'm like, who are you?
18:32So yeah! What's it like when you're say dating?
18:35It's a great hinge prompt.
18:37Oh really?
18:38It gets a lot of replies. Everyone just says,
18:40how do i say your name? And so dating, yeah, it's probably the first thing people say is,
18:44before I meet you I want to know how to say your name. So I usually send the little voice
18:50note and
18:50say, but yeah, again it's always like a great conversation starter, a good icebreaker.
18:56Being so far away from home, from where your name originated, how does that feel living
19:01in Australia?
19:02I actually take a lot of pride in my name, I think it's a great opportunity to educate
19:07people and yeah I'm quite proud to be Irish and I love having an Irish name.
19:13People would tend to say that it's a dying language but I think this is a great way to
19:17kind of preserve it and I think that was my mom's goal with naming us Irish names.
19:21So would you say your name's more than a name, it's also hanging on to a language?
19:26For sure, hanging on to a language, an identity, the culture and yeah definitely.
19:33Demetra, you grew up in a proud Greek Cypriot household, what does your name mean to you?
19:39I love my name, my surname actually means leader in Greek and I feel that I really embody that
19:45in some ways in my career and just in my life.
19:48I even just love the way my name is written and the way I hear it from people's mouths
19:52so it's really important to me.
19:54Your family name's Proestos.
19:56Yes.
19:56You changed your surname to Shepherd when you got married, how did it feel to see your
20:01new name?
20:02Well, my license arrived in the mail and I cried.
20:05Really?
20:06I felt like I completely erased my culture and my identity in that moment and I didn't
20:11recognise what I was reading or seeing on the card.
20:14I think I'm just such a, I'm just really proud of who I am and I always talk about
20:22my culture and I love speaking Greek and I felt like it just completely erased it.
20:27It just, you know, if I was to walk down the street and someone said Mrs Shepherd, I'd
20:32be like I'm just another white person now.
20:33I don't have my point of difference or, you know, I just felt like I wasn't who I was.
20:40Do you think you'd feel the same way if you married a Greek person?
20:44I do think about that because I like to think I'm quite progressive except when it came
20:48to marriage and everything, I thought, oh, I'm going to be traditional, change my name
20:52as soon as I get married, doesn't matter who I marry, it's just that's the way it is,
20:55your family's going to be all together, your kids, everything.
20:58And I don't think it would have shocked me as much if it was a Greek name on the license.
21:02I think there would have still been some sort of tie to my identity in some ways, but I
21:07don't know if it would still be okay.
21:11You changed your name to distance yourself from your Greek father.
21:23Yes.
21:30Every time I've travelled anywhere, whether it's Australia or overseas, and I'd walk
21:36in to register as Dennis Ahoy and people would look at me, are you Irish?
21:42I said, no, I'm full Chinese.
21:45Oh, how come you've got a name Ahoy?
21:48Then I'd have to explain that was my grandfather's name.
21:55You'll see the big original photograph of my grandfather.
22:01When he came to Bendigo with his wife in 1860, his name, and my Chinese name is Lui Du Hoi.
22:10Immigration, they phoneticised it to Ahoy, so the Du Hoi became Ahoy.
22:17Oh, there I am, a little bit younger.
22:20I admire my grandfather, he was very entrepreneurial.
22:24When you think, just 23 years of age when he arrived here, obviously not speaking English,
22:29he had businesses, he ran shops.
22:33He came to make his fortune, and he did, he succeeded in making a fortune.
22:37Here we are.
22:39That is Lung, the oldest imperial dragon left in the world.
22:45In Bendigo, they have an Easter fair procession which started in 1871, and in 1892, my grandfather
22:52and the Chinese community contributed to bringing the old dragon out called Lung, Lung means
22:57dragon, and that is the original dragon, the first one.
23:03The family has contributed a lot to Bendigo, and I'm very proud of that.
23:08But everyone who knows the Ahoy's, my grandchildren, for instance, are Ahoy, so I'm very proud of the name.
23:15I honour my grandfather, and I honour my ancestors.
23:21You, as a four-year-old, you immigrated with your family from Taiwan, and you started going by a different
23:28name.
23:28What was it?
23:29When we immigrated, I was called Judy.
23:33That was your white name?
23:34That's correct.
23:35Why did your parents encourage you to use the name Judy?
23:39It is quite fashionable in Taiwan, where all the kids learn English from a very young age, to be coined
23:46with an English name.
23:48And so when we immigrated, given that my name is you, like the pronoun, they thought it was a good
23:54idea to give me an anglicised name so that it would avoid teasing and potential bullying and not fitting in.
24:03Did being Judy make it easier to fit in?
24:06Absolutely not.
24:09Judy's quite old-fashioned.
24:11I grew up in a predominantly white suburb, and so already there weren't very many Asian families.
24:18And growing up in the 2000s, you know, I was born in the 90s.
24:22Judy's not a name that you would see lots of little kids with, and it was another marker of being
24:29different and not assimilating properly.
24:32What is your full birth name?
24:35So in Mandarin, it's Hong Yu, where we use the surname first.
24:41But on paper, it's quite genderless, so it's Yu Hung.
24:46Would you have preferred to have gone by that name growing up?
24:50I don't know.
24:51That's a great question, because Yu Hung, I get a lot of phallic jokes being hung.
24:57So I don't know if my childhood would have been very different if I stuck with Yu Hung.
25:03But Judy isn't on any legal documentation because it was just a name given to me.
25:08So on my birth certificate and getting into university.
25:11So safer in school, I would always dread roll call.
25:16You get to the point where, in an alphabetical order, I know that my name's coming up.
25:20And the teacher, especially if it was a substitute teacher, would have that ethnic pause where they get to your
25:26name and they can't pronounce it.
25:28And I say, oh, it's me.
25:29And I'm called Judy.
25:31And I was doing that a lot for the benefit of other people.
25:36Minoli, you're originally from Sri Lanka.
25:39Can you relate to Yu's experience of having a name that people kind of paused at when they were reading
25:44it out loud?
25:45Yeah. So I was thinking when you mentioned the ethnic pause, that's such a perfect term for it.
25:50I have four names and the name that I go by with Minoli is my first given name.
25:57But on all documentations, that's not the first name that they see.
26:01That one has, I think, 18 characters. It's pretty long.
26:04So you have four names. Your full name is 40 letters long.
26:09Let's just have a look at it. How do you say it and what does it mean?
26:12Okay. So my full name is Lianam Hottilage Minoli Sakonikavichetunga.
26:18And I go by Minoli, which is my first given name.
26:21So ethnicity-wise, I'm Sinhalese.
26:24And in my culture, a lot of people have a lineage name at the beginning and a family name at
26:29the end.
26:30So Lianam Hottilage, which is my lineage name, it can talk about your, like, you know,
26:37so caste-wise, what trade you used to do or where you were from, like your residence,
26:42or it could mean house of. There are different meanings to it.
26:46And then Wichetunga is what I would call my surname because that's at the end.
26:51So Minoli is my first given name. And that was actually given by my dad.
26:56And I know my dad said when he named me Minoli, he thought that was a bit more anglicized.
27:01So no matter where I went in the world, that would be easy for people to say.
27:07I don't think he foresaw what Lianam Hottilage could do to me.
27:12But yeah, and then Sakonika is my middle name.
27:15My grandmother gave it to me. It means bird.
27:17So I have two given names sandwiched between two family names.
27:22How do those outside Sri Lanka react if they make a mistake with your name?
27:26Basically in like Western countries. I've lived in the UK as well.
27:30They will try to say Lianam Hottilage. And if they make a mistake, and I would say,
27:35oh, it's fine. You can say Minoli. You can call me Minoli. That's my name.
27:39They would insist on me teaching them how to say Lianam Hottilage.
27:43And then often follow it up with, oh, but that's such a pretty name. It's so musical.
27:48I'm like, like, there's almost like a romanticization of it. It's a family name.
27:52Like if you tell me your name is Smith, I'm not going to say, oh, wow, like,
27:56I'm not going to comment on your like surname. Like it's, it just feels weird a whole production
28:01when I just want you to call me by the name I want you to call me.
28:05In Australia, official paperwork often requires a first, a middle and a last name.
28:10What's it like having a name that doesn't follow that standard protocol?
28:14So that's been quite difficult. Also because Lianam Hottilage has 18 characters that doesn't fit
28:21on most forms. So with like, when I go to the GP, for example, they can't look me up in
28:27their system
28:28because Lianam Hottilage is lopped off somewhere in the middle. So now my GP has a note saying for
28:35all Medicare purposes, just issue the invoice to me and I'll make the claim myself. It's a lot of,
28:40I would say, putting thought into processes and like us being always knowing that, oh,
28:46this is going to be a thing and I need to prepare for it.
28:50Le Kapose, you're Karen, an ethnic group of Southeast Asia. How do families create names in your culture?
28:58The Karen people are very particular when it comes to name. When the baby born, they will think
29:04about the future first for the baby. How do they want the baby to be? For example, my name,
29:10Le Kapose. I mean, it can translate it at a shiny store or shiny rock. And so my dad had
29:17a dream and
29:18you know, he hoped that one day I would be a good example of a pupil and be a good
29:23path for the
29:24pupil. And sometimes it's pretty hard to live up to the name because there's a lot of expectation in
29:30the name. Do you have a surname? I originally, I don't. However, come to Australia,
29:37where we had to do a form. So they have a surname. So they cut part of my name. So
29:43Le Kapose is now my
29:45first name and Se is now my last name. Okay. So when you had to then apply for Medicare cards
29:52and things
29:52like that, you had a surname, which was the last part of your name. Yeah. And what about your parents?
29:57What's their surname? They don't really have a surname because traditionally, like I said before,
30:03we don't really have a surname. So my mum and my dad, they added another name. So I'm Le Kapose,
30:10my sister is Le Kapose, my brother is Henise and my mum is May Posse and dad is Salose. So
30:17everyone
30:17have a surname and which it doesn't really mean anything. It's just, you can do the forms.
30:22Yeah.
30:24Dimitra, you became emotional when you first saw your married name written down on that driver's
30:29licence. What happened next?
30:31I looked at Ben and I said, we're going back to service New South Wales and I'm changing it.
30:35And I double barreled it. So I put my name back in and added his. So it's...
30:41So you're now Dimitra Proestos Shepherd, double barreled. Your sons share your double barreled
30:46surname. Why did you want them to be Proestos Shepherds? I wanted them to be able to have that
30:52identity of their Cypriot roots. And I felt if it's Zachary Shepherd, it kind of erases that completely,
30:59right from the get go. So kind of instilling who I am as a person and who I've been raised
31:06to be as a
31:06person. He gets that chance from the beginning too. And now my second son too.
31:11Ben, you're Dimitra's husband. Have you also changed your surname?
31:14Uh, not yet. We've discussed it. Um, I spoke to my family about it. And they were supportive in a,
31:23in a silent way. Um, you could tell they wanted to be supportive, but internally they, they were apprehensive.
31:31Would you like your name to be the same as your wife and son's?
31:35That's the main reason that I wanted to change my name to Proestos Shepherd, so that we're one family unit.
31:42Why do you feel like your family is a bit hesitant?
31:45I think because I come from a very traditional Anglo family. And in that way,
31:53the wife would always take the husband's name and things like that. I was brought up like that.
31:57And I had never thought about how, until I saw Dimitra's reaction, how, how a woman actually felt
32:05about giving up their name and how important it was.
32:08Peter, you changed your name to distance yourself from your Greek father. Why was that?
32:14Uh, well, his name was Peter Bylos and my name was Peter Bylos. And I never really, uh, he was
32:20Greek
32:21and I was born in Australia. I never really felt that I had any affinity with the Greek
32:26culture. Um, we weren't Greek Orthodox. We didn't speak Greek at home and we didn't sort of have
32:31holidays in Greece. And as I was growing up, I realized that, uh, I didn't on a more personal
32:36level, I didn't agree with my father's attitude towards women. Uh, he drank excessively and he
32:42gambled excessively to the detriment of the family. And so as a teenager, I thought, I really need to
32:48detach myself or differentiate myself from my father. And so when my parents got divorced,
32:54I thought now is the time to change my name. How did you choose your new name? Well,
33:02I'd always had a passion for cricket, right? When I was about 11 or 12. And I remember my parents
33:08saying to me, uh, the world cup final 1975 between Australia and the West Indies was being played at
33:14Lords and Clive Lloyd played in innings of 102 of 85 deliveries. And as a kid, I'd never seen in
33:22innings like this, the power, the authority, he was running up and down the wicket, like a black panther,
33:27a super cat. That was his nickname. So to acknowledge that innings and the passion for cricket, I still
33:33have, I changed my surname to Lloyd after Clive Lloyd's 102 of 85 deliveries, 1975 woke up.
33:40So you named yourself Peter Lloyd. If another player had performed super well in that match,
33:48could your name have been something else? My daughter got married recently and we discussed
33:52name changes. And she said, oh, my father named himself after some cricketer. I thought some
33:58cricketer Clive Lloyd, one of the greats of West Indian cricket. So I said, I think the family was so
34:03lucky that Clive Lloyd played that innings of 102 on that 1975 World Cup final because I said to Alvin
34:10Culler-Turran was also in that game. And if he would have scored 102 of 85 deliveries, I said to
34:18Julia,
34:18Julia Culler-Turran doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely as Julia Lloyd or Peter Lloyd for that matter.
34:25How did it feel to change your name?
34:29It was empowering, to be honest. So I made an effort to be different when it came to personal
34:35relationships, to love, to persevere, a different attitude towards alcohol and towards gambling.
34:41And I made sure that no one would say that I was going to be my father's son. And changing
34:47the name
34:47empowered me to be able to make those changes, to be different. And I'd like to think 30 odd years
34:53later,
34:53they have. Yeah. Jess, your parents' divorce also affected the way you felt about your name.
35:00What was it like going by your father's surname as a child?
35:04I felt like as a child, you don't know any different. That's your name. It's on little
35:11stickers, on pencils, on your pencil case, maybe on your uniform if you keep losing your hat. It's
35:16just something that you take for granted. And so once my family divorced, it kind of represented this
35:23shattering of what we've talked about a lot tonight in that your last name is your identity. It's what
35:27you've been given. How did having your father's surname affect your mental health?
35:34I really kind of experienced a very tough time as a teenager. I struggled at school and I wasn't
35:44able to be a kid. I saw friends that had their father's last names and they just seemed to have
35:49it
35:49all together and mine just seemed to be falling apart. Did you think that changing your name was
35:56an option for you? No, that was something that people did if they changed their name when they
36:02got married and divorced. That was the only time that people changed their name from my understanding
36:06as a teenager. So for me, it was almost just the wildest idea possible to know that, hey,
36:14a minor can also change their name. It's not the typical, but it can be done.
36:19Your mum helped you change your name when you were a child. How did it feel to have a new
36:25surname?
36:27It quite literally changed and saved my life. I truly believe that if I was the previous Jessica,
36:36that my life would be extremely different than what it is now. So I'm so proud. Anytime I introduce myself,
36:43I say, hi, I'm Jess O'Halloran. Catherine, in 1997, you wanted to travel overseas.
36:49How easy was it to apply for a Fijian passport using your chosen name as a transgender woman?
36:57Well, it had never been done before. I literally had to change the world for my name.
37:06You called the Fijian embassy in Canberra every day, I think. What was their response to your request?
37:13They were very polite the first time, but I think by the hundredth time, they just kept hanging up on
37:19me. So I'd ring and go, hello, and they'd just hang up.
37:22Really?
37:23Yeah. Well, I was only 23. So when you're young,
37:25you can ask the same question a hundred different times expecting and hoping for a new answer.
37:31You flew to Canberra.
37:32Yes. This was me when I was 20. I was very beautiful, which was also a part of the issue.
37:40Travelling under a male name looking like this spelt danger in many countries. I would have been
37:48vulnerable to physical and sexual violence. And that's why I pushed to have a female name to travel.
37:59When you got to Canberra, what happened?
38:02Well, they were, you know, I look spectacular. And the lady that kept hanging up on me on the
38:09phone, the doors opened at the embassy and she sort of scraped the ground. Hello,
38:15madam. How can I help you? I said, you keep hanging up on me. Why did you come down here?
38:21I said, look at me, look at me. You can't expect me to travel. It's never been done. I said,
38:28we can do this now. And she said, would you like to speak to someone higher up? And I said,
38:34yes, please. And she was, she was furious. And eventually I did speak to someone. And
38:41my arguments were that at the time Fiji used a Commonwealth Australian law. And you could
38:50change your name legally from male to female in Australia. And I said to them, I said, you know,
38:57a passport asks for safe passage. And I would not have safe passage traveling under a male name.
39:05You ended up traveling to Fiji to request a passport be issued
39:10in your preferred name. Yes. Were you successful? Yes. Yes. Well, I mean, you know, I'm a bit
39:16determined. I became the first transgender woman in Fiji to be openly and legally granted a female
39:26name by the Fijian government, which is on my passport and my birth certificate. I think the
39:32government in the end was like, oh, trouble ahead. Give her her damn passport and get her out of the
39:37country. How did it feel to see your name in your new passport for the first time?
39:45I don't think words can really properly express how beautiful it is. A trans woman, I am an expression
39:56of who I am inside. And, you know, to see my name on a document was a fulfillment of a
40:08dream.
40:09And I don't think you can really properly, you know, it's not just my dream. This is the dream of
40:17thousands of years of generations of trans people. How much did it cost you to get there?
40:25Well, yes, it cost a lot of money, even in a third world country. It was, it was thousands. And
40:32I never,
40:34ever told anyone about what I did, mainly because it was so traumatic. I had PTSD from,
40:42and I haven't been back to Fiji since. It was a trauma. That's why you can't call me Kathy. Every
40:48syllable cost me a fortune. Hey, Siri. Hey. I'm the first person to make that joke, right? Not today.
41:00Every day. I hear it a lot.
41:10Now it's known as Perita Island. I think it means oysters in the mangroves.
41:15That's the Aboriginal term for Perita. But we know the island as Coon Island.
41:23Well, the name is important because of the history behind it.
41:27We used to swim out here. We used to swim over that island.
41:32It was named after my grandfather. I'm disappointed that it was changed, but I understand it.
41:41They've interfered with history.
41:45We're grandsons of Herbert Greeter Heaney, known as Coon.
41:52This is where Pop lived. Pop occupied the first house on the island.
42:01He was a bit of a larrikin. He was called, from when he was a kid,
42:07Coon. Coon. Because of his olive skin and his black eyes. Like a raccoon.
42:16But because the name being derogatory to black people, it became a subject that was really targeted.
42:26It was spearheaded over at council and the mayor at the time told us that people could vote whether
42:32to keep the name the same or to change the name. The vote was in the majority to keep the
42:38name the same.
42:39Oh, man, it does.
42:41But they decided to change it anyhow. I know my family and their family and their family will
42:47always call it Kearney. The people that lived on the island or come to the island named it.
42:55And that was history. And I'm a sticker for history.
43:01Chris, you supported Lake Macquarie City Council's decision to rename Perita Island.
43:06Yes. Why?
43:07I was just uncomfortable with the word, the naming. I'd always found it unfortunate,
43:14particularly given the history of what it meant, partly in America, but also here as well,
43:20particularly with the meaning with blackface as well. And I just didn't think that we could
43:24keep a word like that as a community moving forward.
43:27The island was originally named after its first white resident. Should we acknowledge that history?
43:35Yes, I think it should be. But it's also the indigenous history that's been there for 60,000
43:41years as well. Which history do you want to talk about? How can you just wipe aside 60,000 years
43:47of history? Some locals disagreed with the change. They felt the original name was not intended to be
43:54racist. Does the reasoning behind a name matter? It does. But there's also the issue that if you
44:02become aware of something and the other kind of meaning that it has, I think that matters as well.
44:07Sonia, before you became a baby name consultant, you worked in brand strategy and marketing.
44:13How hard is it to rename or rebrand something?
44:17It's incredibly difficult depending on which way you do it. If it is something that needs to be
44:23renamed because it's tied to scandal or a bad history, it's necessary. But if something is so
44:32synonymous and entrenched, it can be incredibly difficult to shift people's mindset.
44:38How do brands then come up with effective names?
44:41Sonia, when I was in brand strategy, I would name colors, collections, products, and there's twofold.
44:48Create a difficult name that's difficult but short. That creates conversation because people are asking
44:53how do you pronounce it? So even if they're not going to engage with the name, they're talking about it.
44:58So it's part of the language. Or give it a person's name and then it makes something inanimate,
45:04human. And then you tie something to it. I found it quite interesting though. ChatGPT has notoriously
45:10named their personas not human names, which I think is important to make it feel like they're not
45:17actually human or going to take over us. So they're doing the reverse, which has never been done really.
45:22Hey Siri. Hey. I'm the first person to make that joke, right? Not today.
45:30Every day. Every day. I hear it a lot. Yeah. Siri, what's it like sharing your name with such an
45:37ever-present brand? I like it. It's just not really something that I've thought about a lot. Obviously,
45:44since Siri was introduced, the joke was made all the time. And now I just kind of am used to
45:50it.
45:51How does your name affect your daily life? So it's quite funny that obviously when people kind of
45:56call out to me and go like, hey Siri. And even now, like some phone might just go off randomly
46:01in the office. It would be like a common occurrence when, you know, a colleague or a boss would just
46:06be
46:06like, hey Siri, can you come in my office? And then their phone would go off and be like, I
46:10can't help
46:11you with that. And it's like, ha, ha, ha. You know, when you set up your phone with your name
46:18and you
46:18asked Siri to do it, how did that work for you? When it just first came out, I just wouldn't
46:23understand it.
46:24So when I typed in like, oh, my name is Siri, and it just, I had to go back and
46:29forth a few times,
46:30and I just didn't understand that that was my name. How do you feel about your name? I love it.
46:37My mum actually liked the name because she likes the letter I, and she thinks it's like a happy
46:42letter. My mum, dad and brother all have I's in their names. And it just means like superwoman
46:49and empowering and things like that in different cultures and languages across the world. So I'm
46:54pretty proud of it. Karen from finance, how important is your name in the world of drag?
47:02Wildly important. As I said earlier, it started as a joke, but I've become so attached to it. About
47:08two years ago, I was kind of getting burnt out with drag. It's a really important time in the world
47:13to
47:13be an artist, but it's a really difficult time in the world to be an artist. And so I took
47:16a little
47:16break. And I've come back to performing in the last couple of months, just purely because of how much I
47:22missed that character and that person and being this persona. What did you miss about Karen from finance?
47:29I missed the way she kind of lit up a room when she walked in. I missed the effect
47:35that she had on people. I love being at a club or, you know, a festival in any kind of
47:41space where
47:41I can be performing where it's not just the show that makes people smile and laugh. It's
47:46her connection and presence. It's a really powerful thing that I haven't wrapped my head
47:51around how that exists yet. But I know that I have that superpower within me. And yeah, I really missed
47:56that. Juna, you were bothered by how often your name was misspelt when you were younger.
48:02Does that still affect you as an adult? Absolutely not. I could have taken it two ways. I could have
48:09continued despising my name or used it as to my advantage. And I did manage to land a job as
48:17a
48:17writer for a publication while I was at uni. And when I landed this job, the amount of emails I
48:25would
48:25receive on a daily basis from PRs addressed to June, Juno, Junie, anyone but me was hilarious to me.
48:35So I actually started to post every single email on my Instagram stories. And then it became kind of
48:44my personal brand that the media industry would associate me with. I wouldn't have been able to
48:51make all these connections in the media industry if it wasn't because of a weird name.
48:57So your brand is kind of the girl with the weird name? The girl with the weird name.
49:00I received so many DMs from friends and colleagues of all those funny memes of people misspelling their
49:08names. And I'm like, yes, 10 other people have sent me that already. But it's really funny.
49:15Look, as per tradition in the Karen culture, you weren't given a surname at birth. How does it feel
49:22to have a surname that you can pass on to your own children one day?
49:26I feel very special. I don't think it would mean anything to me if I'm back in the country. But
49:31in
49:31here, I learned it is something that you can be proud of. Because I want to know my grandfather and
49:39my great-great, like where we came from. But the thing is, we don't have a surname. So we can't
49:45track
49:45it back. So I wanted to be the first generation that have a surname. And I am the first generation
49:51that have a surname. So my legacy. So, you know, if I have a kid, great kid later, so that
49:57we know,
49:58you know, where they come from and who they are, because that is very important. And as my dad
50:03intended to call me, because he called me lego posse. So it saved me to be bright. So I wanted
50:09to be
50:10the bright star for the next generation to come.
50:13Stephen, you've always been interested in the history of people's surnames.
50:18Yes.
50:18Do our names shape our identities?
50:21I think they do. And in different ways. My name is Trump. And we came from royal trumpeters
50:30and drummers, they say. And music was in my family. My dad was a tap dancer and a singer.
50:38I've got a niece who's a singer. And my granddaughter now wants to do tap dancing,
50:43which I thought was interesting, because it was just something that her great-grandfather did.
50:49So yeah, I think it does.
50:52Catherine, it's been almost 30 years since you became the first transgender person in Fiji to
50:57legally change their name. What is in a name for you?
51:01Well, my name is everything to me. It has empowered me. It has given me strength.
51:11And in my era now, where I'm where I'm an elder, you know, and so my name now carries precedence
51:19for me.
51:20You know, I can say Catherine Wolfe Graham. And people have heard of me. That gives me great pride,
51:28because I wasn't expecting to be much. I had no enormous ambition for myself when I first transitioned.
51:36I just wanted to be a beautiful woman. And I'm pleased. Other trans people now in Fiji,
51:44they can all change their name. You know, and I'm proud of that too.
51:49Thank you so much. And thank you to you all for being here. That's all we have time for.
51:53Thank you for your company. You can catch up on this episode or any others on SBS On Demand.
51:57I'll see you next time.
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