My Mother Named Me Twice
How my mom, Gladys, claimed and reclaimed her agency and authority over my name
“Give your daughters difficult names. Give your daughters names that command the full use of tongue. My name makes you want to tell me the truth. My name doesn’t allow me to trust anyone that cannot pronounce it right.” – Warsan Shire
There are many ways to pronounce Tamara: Tuh-mare-uh (like the Mowry twin), Tuh-marr-uh (like tomorrow is said in rural Tennessee), Tam-ruh (ignoring the middle a) or Tam-uh-ruh. My parents pronounce my name in the latter way. However, by kindergarten, my name was read in any of the above-mentioned forms based on the preference of the speaker. I once went home in tears after a group of older girls turned Annie’s signature song into a taunt, “Tomorrow (Tamara). Tomorrow, we hate you. We hate you.” By the age of six, I was well-experienced in correcting my name to friends and foes. To alleviate the confusion, my white second-grade teacher shortened my name to Tammy. Teaching a class of mostly white students in an upper-middle-class suburb of Chicago, my teacher felt she knew what was best for me. She did not request my parent’s permission to change my name. I was taught to write Tammy and I was referred to as such throughout the day.
My mother selected a name for me that filled her with pride as a Black woman. Pride is a privilege to have as a Black woman in America. Naming your child can be a privilege as well. As fans of Blaxploitation films, my parents loved the powerful character, Cleopatra Jones. Played by Tamara Dobson, Cleopatra Jones was a special agent “working for the President himself.”[1] Roger Ebert referred to Dobson as “striking” and referenced her height which was rumored to be 6’1.[2] Cleopatra Jones was not a “conventional heroine” in the blaxploitation genre.[3] Like Pam Greir, Tamara Dobson broke through the misogyny of blaxploitation films by taking the lead in the Cleopatra Jones series. She and Greir were the only two actresses to lead their own Blaxploitation vehicles.[4] The (valid) critiques of Blaxploitation films were concerned with the violence, misogyny, and demeaning tropes of Blackness. However, as author Jamaica Kincaid stated, the women-led movies had “redeeming value.”[5] “They are the only films to come out of Hollywood…to show us a woman who is independent, resourceful, self-confident, strong, and courageous…. They are also the only films to show us a woman who triumphs,” Kincaid argued.[6] When I asked her, my mother agreed that she shared Kincaid’s point-of-view when she saw Dobson’s “magnified and magnificent” visage on-screen.[7] She wanted to give her only daughter who was to be born into the intersections of racism and chauvinism a fighting chance. Inspired by the independence and prowess of Cleopatra Jones, my mother named me Tamara.
My parents were not passive in their response to my name being shortened. When teachers called me Tammy, my mom would say, “Tamara.” When my parents wrote notes to school, the notes read, “Tamara.” To this day, if someone calls me “Tammy” when speaking to my brother, he replies, “who is that?” Our extended family never adopted the nickname. In my all-Black Sunday School, I was called Tamara. Tammy existed from 8 am – 3 pm, Monday through Friday, at Greenwood Elementary. Sometimes, she made an appearance at the neighborhood park over the weekend, but for the most part, my given name was the only version used when I was not in school. Likewise, my world in school was predominantly white, while my home life and extracurriculars were Black. Tammy was the sobriquet of my earliest experiences with code-switching.
In the fourth grade, my math teacher passed out candy to the top 10 scorers on the state aptitude test in our grade. I recall sitting quietly in my seat, slightly envious of friends eating Jolly Ranchers. My teacher turned to the class and said “alright, let’s do a little math problem. This person made a perfect score and had the highest score in the grade and state. They have 5 As in their name.” While my classmates yelled out the names of anyone with more than one A, I spelled out my whole name on my fingers: Tamara Ashley Sawyer. Shocked, I yelled out my full given name. My math teacher beamed and tossed me a coveted Jolly Rancher stick and congratulated me on my results. Meanwhile, students mumbled around me, causing me to realize that few of them knew my real name. Their consternation and surprise at both my name and my score dampened my jubilation.
By middle school, Tammy reached a level of prominence. Tammy was written on my report cards. Tammy got detention for talking back in class. Tammy was mocked on the bus for reading books before school. While Tamara still existed at home and Church, my extracurriculars were attached to school and Tammy time encompassed a large part of my life. I began to hear my parents and grandmother slip and refer to me as Tammy. I became more social in the neighborhood and at school. So, when the house phone rang, the calls were for Tammy. Sleepover invitations and Girl Scout cookie forms were emblazoned with Tammy. I no longer heard my mother correct teachers and sometimes her looping cursive spelled ‘Tammy” on notes. The socialization of school elevated the nickname that my teacher chose for convenience, diminishing the power of my given name.
During middle school, our suburb, once a destination for white flight, changed as families moved from the Southside of Chicago to our town. More students with brown skin arrived between fourth and fifth grade. More names on the class roster started with the 90s infamous La’s and De’s. My brother and I went from one of five Black kids on our block to finding ourselves in the majority. Tamara sounded better to the new inhabitants of our street than Tammy. Tammy went to gifted classes. Tamara tried to double-dutch after school. I found myself often in trouble in school and at home as I tried to navigate this new double consciousness. Tamara liked Karl Kani and Jodeci. Tammy anxiously wondered if it was too early to take the PSAT.
For some of us, these worlds intersected. John* and Nadia* were two of the other Black kids in gifted classes with me since the second grade.[8] We lived in the same subdivision and witnessed the transformation of our neighborhood. John played basketball more and Nadia and I were able to have a crush on more than one boy. Whereas we once had to defend the existence of BET during a bus ride, now we sang along to WGCI in art class. We saw police patrol our neighborhood for the first time and learned about the problem with gangs at lunch. In gifted class, we were told we were different from and better than the new Black kids. We were smarter and better behaved. Because we lived in the town longer, we were not considered the bad type of Black as long as we behaved. For the most part, we complied, but often we stared across the hall with deep yearning as we heard Keisha* rapping in the other class.[9] Tammy turned back to her desk and finished her SRAs. Tamara rapped along with Keisha in her head.
The summer before seventh grade, my parents moved us to Memphis, TN, my mother’s hometown. After evaluating the academic options, they chose to enroll me in an all-girl parochial school. My mother took this as an opportunity to reclaim my name. First, leaning into her southern upbringing, she asked me if I wanted to be called Tamara Ashley. My first and middle name placed together as a moniker felt like the Boyz II Men posters on my wall would have to be replaced with one of the New Kids. Hearing too many syllables, not enough soul, and a lifetime of pronunciation corrections, I demurred. With her pen above the line titled “Known As,” my mother said “well you can only be Tammy if we respell it. That spelling is white and country.” With flourish, she spelled out several new-age forms of Tammy on a pad of paper: Tammie, Tamie, Tammi. Finally, she wrote, “Tami.” It was simple, balanced, and bold. It led to a rare agreement between a twelve-year-old girl and her mother: I liked it and so did she. Completing the form and attaching it to a ridiculously high check, my mother sealed the envelope that named me, Tami Sawyer.
Tami is the name that would follow me through high school, college, and into my professional career. Somehow, it encompassed both Tamara and Tammy and with that change, my name was once again given to me by my mother. As Tami, I would journey to be everything she worked to instill in me and saw in Tamara Dobson: fierce, independent, and proud of my Blackness and my womanhood. I am still Tamara to my family. They never retired my birth name. Hearing Tamara gives me a sense of comfort and the feeling of being deeply known. My professional accomplishments are often listed under Tami but seeing it causes little if any chagrin for my mother, as it is spelled in her design. I no longer see Tamara and Tami as two people, as I try less and less to code-switch in professional and academic settings. In fact, I use the two interchangeably in academic writing and records. I feel an ownership over Tami that I did not feel over Tammy. By selecting a less common spelling, my mother ensured that people would still have to feel the weight of my name.
[1] https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/cleopatra-jones-1973
[2] https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/cleopatra-jones-1973
[3] Jennifer DeVere Brody, “The Returns of Cleopatra Jones,” Signs 25, no. 1 (1999): 93.
[4] Brody, “The Returns,” 95.
[5] Brody, “The Returns,” 95.
[6] Brody, “The Returns,” 95.
[7] Brody, “The Returns,” 93.
[8] Pseudonym
[9] Pseudonym
This is a great read.
I love this, as a girl with a big name it wasn’t always easy, but my mom always stood firm on spelling and no nicknames allowed. Your mom did an amazing job!