If there was anything superficial I could change about myself, it would be my name. See, my birth name is Alyssa Marie. And it’s not Alyssa like Alyssa Milano either, it’s Alyssa pronounced “Ah-lie-sah.” Yes, I’ve had a lifetime of correcting teachers, professors, and classmates. My co-workers called my “Eh-Lee-Sah” for a whole year too even after correcting them. At one point I totally got tired of it and started thinking that people can call me whatever the heck they want as long as they knew my face. But growing up, I’ve always been known as Sasha, and it’s the name I’ve loved and the name I fully identify with.
In any typical Filipino family, nicknames are common. Usually, nicknames stem from the original name, for example, Caroline would be “Lin-Lin” and so on and so forth. But my name is seriously a stretch. My Dad told me in thinking of my nickname, he took it from the stem of my name, took the “-sa,” thought that “Sa-Sa” sounded off, and decided to just call me Sasha. Ta-Da! Like magic.
If I had a choice, I wish that everyone called me Sasha. I wish my closest friends could call me Sasha, but they can’t. I wish I could take back all those moments where I had to correct everyone about the pronunciation of my first name. It’s so awkward hehe PLUS, my last name is hard enough!
Sasha
It just sounds more like me. I have that sense of ownership over it, like, this is me, this is my name. It’s not the fact that it’s easier to say or easier to read. It’s a part of who I am and although I can’t explain it without sounding any weirder, I wish that I was named this name from the very beginning.