Tracing Your Name

In Airea D. Matthews’s “etymology,” she writes to explore the meaning of her name and its pronunciation. Published for the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day in 2019, Matthews explains the origin for the poem and how she used a nickname during open mics to make it easier for hosts to pronounce her name: “I realize now it was one of the many ways I’d learned to make myself smaller in space, less pronounced.” What is the personal history of your name? How has it been encountered in different spaces? Write a poem that seeks to trace the etymology and personal history of your name.