Reclaim Your Roots. No Shame In Your Name. Juliana Ogechi

Juliana Ogechi No Shame in My Name

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Our names can share much about where we came from, our culture, our family. Juliana Ogechi host of the podcast no shame in my name, where she celebrates the stories behind names. Born in England her name is of Nigerian ancestry. Juliana is a creative writer and she does share some of her own writing here on the show today.

She is soft-spoken, but the stories that she tells on her podcast and the stories that she writes speak volumes of everyday life.

Well, Juliana, it is so good to have you here on the show, here at your positive imprint and excited to learn more about names as well as your podcast. No shame in a name, Juliana Ogechi. Welcome to the show.

And yeah, it's been like a beautiful passion project of mine. On the side, I work in advertising. I'm a creative and I love writing. Sometimes it's more like short stories.

Um, and then sometimes it's poetry.

And I that title's awesome. My name has changed, , through marriage, but also it was changed from a German name to Praise Water because at Ellis Island they couldn't pronounce the German form.

So there you go. What,

I think it's a great thing to do a history on the name because you find your roots and you learn, as you said in the beginning here, culture. So tell me about no shame in a name what kinds of of cultures are you learning with regard to just the name?

But it's been interesting to learn there's so many languages in Nigeria. So when you say Nigeria, people might think of it as like monolithic. This one place where people all speak the same language, but there's like 200 languages spoken. Oh. And through the podcast , I've come to understand the different languages that exist in Nigeria alone.

So that's been like an interesting personal learning for myself. But then also I've interviewed people who are not from Africa and also seeing how their names play out in their cultures or in their family stories, and that's been very interesting as well. Yeah, it's been, it's been fun to be honest.

Oh,

But I, I say chi, so like chi. So if there's a chi and like say someone says they're Nigerian and they've got like a chi in their name, you would know immediately that they're from the Ibo the Ibo Tribe. . So like Che or Ogechi, echi, like all those names. You know, immediately that they're Ebo I and then you have, um, you name that might have (spelling),

we've had (Spelling) so yeah, that's just one example of how you can tell for a name what part of Nigeria someone is from.

And so because of the history of, you know, Africans being taken to the Caribbean, Yeah. You've got, maybe he explained it as like people trying to reclaim their roots in a way to Africa. And so giving their EuroEbo or Nigerian West African names to sort of tie them back to their lost ancestry.

That's a great story I had on the show talking of the chi, the c h i ending. Mm-hmm. . So I had her first name. ended in chi and she is Ebo Ugochi Uweo. And she is working at trying to save the Ebo language because the United Nations had done some research on language languages around the world and found

It's interesting to learn like language and Foods as well. So from the name, it's interesting to go into different conversations about that person and their family and their journey of life so far.

So, is there anything else you wanna share about the show before we get to your creative writing?

It kind of takes you back to a place where you can understand your parents' journey and yeah, I just think it's beautiful to hear those stories as to why they chose your name, and maybe it's not as elaborate as others, but just to know the story. Oh, we were going to the hospital and we saw this, or your auntie was called this, or we named you after a close friend.

All those stories still matter, even if it's not tied specifically to culture per se.

But my last name, I have two last names. Those last names are my, upbringing and my roots. And then, Who I'm sharing my life with. In the United States, we take our spouse name sometimes and sometimes not. I added it because I didn't wanna lose who I am and I, and I'm not gonna lose who I am.

But as you said, you know, There's no shame in a name. So mine's super long. You can never get it on, on an application. Half the time it's just cut off. People , , will call me Cat Keeping Sanchez was a way to, uh, number one, it was easier to keep records straight instead of dropping a name.

You drop a name and who knows what would happen. It's easier to add. But I did wanna keep that identity of my roots. But then I also wanted to show the world that I am sharing my life with somebody else.

And this is our family. And that's Praiswater. That is us.

And those are pretty new roots of recent times, and my dad also has Irish roots, so people from uh, Ireland came over here and that was his mother's side from Northern Ireland.

Names are interesting and I'm glad you're doing this and bringing it up because I think it's, it's just something that's, that is interesting. It's something that children of all ages can do. They're learning their name in kindergarten, they're learning their last name in kindergarten, and they can go home and ask their mom about the last name.

Then they can ask about the first name. Well, why was I named, you know these names and. Great to have a conversation and yes, to learn about, like you said, these are great stories to tell.

Are there any last inspiring words you would like to share?

hearing them speak about the past, I think there's something rich in that. So I just encourage people to ask loads of questions and to be curious about the names that they've been given.

At work we had a poetry workshop with one of my good friends called Toya. Toya Panton. She's a great poet, and she was asking us, Does anyone do poetry? And I was like, No.

I don't call myself a poet. , although I have written poetry before, I don't call myself a poet. But yeah, I can definitely share some Would love I've written,

Where I'm from, despite the crack spots and cracked pots, encased in weeded plants, we still had dreams that grew taller than the towers and trees that surrounded us all. I come from small, cramped property material poverty that didn't matter if a mine is built over mansions our imaginations could mold a single simple mustard seed into mountains.

I come from crying bucket bursts to trying buckets of laughter. I come from tripping up and laughing about it after I come from not enough space for a woo drap. So most of my clothes were coerced into a single simple bag. And though there was space that we lacked

you never lacked love. And that came for my mom and my dad.

This one's called Londontown. I'm gonna share a little bit of it cause I didn't feel I can remember the whole thing.

London town is buzzing. Quick, bustling.

Can't quit hustling. Fill your blood. Rushing streets, hustling, feet rushing. Even the birds are rushing it. Extreme extremes. Some of everything, some, if nothing. Cardboard boxes laid out on the streets. That's nothing compared to bucking them. Palace London Town is fussing over paper or the weather. Slow walkers barely prosper in a town that's always rushing.

London Town is Russian and Jamaican, and every single country on this planet, crowds of tourists, they marveled over historical land. Yet they'll be overlooking the role of homeless men sat outside the kings cross station. Silence is scary. In this city. It's almost nonexistent. Foreign. Nino. Nino, I think I heard the sirens come in.

No shame in my name podcast with Juliana Ogetchi is available on most podcast platforms. Well, I'm having a drawing for your positive imprint cotton shopping bag. Here's how to enter the drawing, share how you have reduced or eliminated single use plastics or other types of plastics or nylon

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