And they called me up to the front and they re like, what s your name? and i said, chinemelum, and i was really standing there proudly. and the teacher was like, what was that? i said, chinemelum. and she was like, to the whole school, if you don t know how to pronounce that, just call her chicken lemon. and from that day, literally everybody was calling me chicken lemon. i just felt a bit small, like nobody was taking me seriously. like, i needed to keep up with the joke and keep up with people, like, calling me by the wrong namejust so, like, my friends wouldn t leave me, basically. after that, she decided to go by mel. it s all just rooted in a lot of discrimination and prejudice, i guess, and, like, people s opinions towards people of colour in general. i feel like a lot of the time when people pronounce my name correctly first time i feel so happy, but then i feel like that s the bare minimum like, that s my name! so i really feel like people should put more of an eff
Nina nanji, bbc news. that s actually not my name, though. my real name is noor, but at work i chose to go by nina because so many people were getting it wrong and that got me wondering whether other people have done similar things. i m off to meet chinemelum, who s been abbreviating her name for most of her life. so when i was in year three, ijoined a new school and they called me up to the front and they re like, what s your name? and i said, chinemelum, and i was really standing there proudly. and the teacher was like, what was that? i said, chinemelum. and she was like, to the whole school, if you don t know how to pronounce that, just call her chicken lemon. and from that day, literally everybody was calling me chicken lemon. i just felt a bit small, like nobody was taking me seriously. like, i needed to keep up with the joke and keep up with people, like, calling me by the wrong namejust so, like, my friends wouldn t leave me, basically. after that, she decided to g