For this post I won’t be talking about my first name “Patrina” I will be talking about my middle name “Wintima”. The reason why I will be talking about my middle name and not my first name is because I’ve always liked my first name and I never felt embarrassed of my first name, but my middle name has always been a different story. My middle name is my cultural name it is a common name in the upper east region of Ghana, Bawku where I am originally from. For as long as I can remember I have been embarrassed of my middle name, out of all my siblings I was the only one my parents would call using my middle name and not my first name. All my family members except for my two older sisters call me by my middle name. My middle name means “God’s Gift” or “God’s Gift to me” in my native language Kusal. The reason I hated my middle name and would often correct my parents when they called me wintima in public saying ” That’s my middle name not my actual name why do you always call me Wintima?” is because it was a name that made others constantly say ” Ive never heard a name like that before” or “how do you pronounce it” or  ” wow that is a very ethic name” and worse of all I hated how much they would often struggle to pronounce it with the right tone and right flow of the words “WINTIMA”. I had often found myself trying to pronounce my name in a more “Europeanized way”  instead of the “African Way”, the way it should be pronounced. But over the years I have learned that , my middle name is a part of me that will always be there it reminds me of my culture and my home.