Journal #3

Your name helps define who you are as a person and possibly where you and/or your ancestors are from, along with many other reasons such as religion, ethnicity/race, and culture.  My name helps define my own personality and my characteristics.  Depending on how people look at it, our names have certain distinctive meanings, but throughout life we have many opportunities to define our name ourselves and find our own meaning.  Also, names separate people from one another.  Rarely will people find another person with the same name as them, but I find that when I do, it's pretty cool.  I would never change my name because it is the same name as my dads.  Although I am not a junior, sharing the same first and last name with my father means more than people actually think.  There are many meanings to the name Daniel, but I never really looked them up.  Throughout our childhood and still today, my dad and I are often referred to as Danny, a shortened version of Daniel. 

"How could our parents have ever imagined that someday we would end up in a country where monosyllabic names reign supreme, a land where "William" is shortened to "Bill," where "Susan" becomes "Sue," and "Richard" somehow evolves into "Dick"?"

I agree with the authors decision to change her name to an "American" name.  If I was at a young age with a name as difficult to pronounce as Firoozeh Dumas and I had just recently moved to the US from Iran, I would absolutely change my name to something easier for Americans to say, as well as something that wasn't going to get myself made fun of every day.  For cultural reasons I would probably keep part of my Iranian name, but I would not choose to be called that name in America.

Stereotyping and discrimination absolutely still occur based on a person's name; not just here, but in other countries as well.  I see it every day on campus and I know it still occurs every where that people are.  People assume that because someone doesn't have a name that they are familiar with that that person is lesser than them or less popular; that that individual isn't as important of a human being and that they shouldn't be treated as equal as them.  It's not right at all.  People should respect others for who they are as individuals because everyone comes from a different place and their names help make them who they are.

The name Daniel (Danny) means "God is my judge" or "God is my guide".