“A few weeks ago, as we got ready to record our conversation, my interviewer asked for clarity on how to properly say my last name. She wouldn’t even attempt a pronunciation; she didn’t want to mess it up.

Laughing, I urged her to “give it a shot,” to make an effort. She insisted I pronounce it first, waiting for me to give in to her anxieties. I didn’t. I dug my feet in, leaned in closer, and told her to try – implying we weren’t going to begin the interview until she at least risked failure. Pursing her lips, her eyes dropping for a second in resignation, she articulated it: “A-ko-mo-lafe?” It sounded vaguely Russian, so I celebrated the moment, and then addressed her confusion:

“The Yoruba people don’t mind when others mispronounce their names. We celebrate the gift of mispronunciation: it affords us new opportunities to meet ourselves again as if for the first time. To hear the multiplicity and comical indeterminacy that haunts recognition.”

Her eyes widened.

“If everyone got it right, nailed it on first try, what an awful cosmology that would be. It is because my name is not fully mine that I can trust you to bend it, twist it, and risk making it something else altogether. But if I do not risk your mispronunciation, I also foreclose the opportunity to become different, to taste new things. Yes. Our names are sacred because they are never complete in themselves – because we are hospitable to the stranger, from whose mouth and tongue we will occasionally hear God speak new secrets.”

The rest of the interview was a blast.”

— Bayo Akomolafe