"Hi Ang!"
Please nobody ever address unsolicited messages to me like this. You don't just get to assign someone a nickname before you've even met them. "Ang" is not and never has been my nickname. 1/
Please nobody ever address unsolicited messages to me like this. You don't just get to assign someone a nickname before you've even met them. "Ang" is not and never has been my nickname. 1/
The only nicknames I accept are Hari/Harry and derivatives thereof. I went by Harry up until I was about 21 and moved to Indonesia to study for a year. Like a lot of my friends, and many students I have known who studied in Australia, I wanted a name that seemed more local 2/
"Hari" means "day" in Bahasa Indonesia, and many Indonesians have nicknames from a middle syllable from their name (i.e. AngHARad). Interestingly, more people pronounced Angharad correctly when I was in Indonesia than they do here in Australia where we are linguistically poor 3/
Another reason why I changed the spelling from Harry to Hari was because I constantly get misgendered and cop a lot of pushback from people ("Harry's a boy's name") AND because people assume with two Rs, Harry must be short for Harriet 4/
However, I don't put my nicknames on any of my social media or my website for two clear reasons:
1. Because Angharad is the name I publish under and it is part of my brand as a writer, but
2. Because there is a huge expectation that people Anglicise their names 5/
1. Because Angharad is the name I publish under and it is part of my brand as a writer, but
2. Because there is a huge expectation that people Anglicise their names 5/
Ironically, Angharad is a Welsh name, so about as Anglicised as names get, yet people make a lot of assumptions about my race when they haven't met me in person. I wrote about this here: feminartsy-com.dreamhosters.com/what-does-your… 6/
Nobody should be obligated to offer you an "easier" or shorter name for your convenience. "Difficult" names were often chosen for us by our families to celebrate our cultural heritage. Shortening a name you find too arduous to type out in full is disrespectful and erasing 7/
Cannot write a thread like this without referring to @ThandiweNewton
https://twitter.com/ThandiweNewton/status/1379117680452644870?s=19
Or the appalling way Phuc Bui Diem Nguyen was treated nytimes.com/2020/06/21/us/…
And, of course, @iamlumumba who reclaimed his birth name abc.net.au/news/2017-09-0…
Mahinarangi Tautu who was given a nickname at school nzherald.co.nz/nz/mahinarangi…
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