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I regret changing my name to fit in at work, but now it's too hard to go back

I don't feel guilty but I regret a decision I made nearly 15 years ago. I was working at a consulting firm when one day my manager summoned me to his office. "I'm afraid your contract with us won't be extended and you should start looking for another job."

The dreaded news didn't come as a surprise. At the time I was suffering from a complex form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, after the death of a friend during the Iran-Iraq war and the terror and shock of active military service. I struggled to concentrate on my work because of my obsessive focus on my debilitating heart palpitations and chest pain. It is difficult to perceive the outside world when glued to the eyepiece of a microscope, but I couldn't pull away.

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Given my financial commitments – a mortgage, a family to support – and the PTSD albatross around my neck, I felt paralysed. Besides, after the September 11 tragedy, negative sentiments against migrants from the Middle East were palpable in the streets of Sydney. I had to find a way out of my predicament.

As you would expect I updated my CV but changed my name to Sam instead of Saeed. I couldn't afford to be discriminated against because of my name; I already had too many things going against me in life. Fortunately, I found another job in no time and my dual identity was born; I was Sam to the business world and Saeed among family and friends.

At first it was more confusing to me than others. I don't recall exactly how many times I got mixed up but it took my puzzled brain months to register the new name. I am positive that back then I couldn't even pronounce Sam properly, because in several early phone conversations I was interrupted with, "Sorry, who?"

Within a few years, with professional help and personal study, I gradually recovered from PTSD, mastered the skills needed at work and began a normal life, but by then Sam had become an inseparable part of my identity.

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My experience has sharpened my senses towards migrants' names, especially those who have adopted nicknames. It seems migrants tend to adopt nicknames or formally alter their names for three main reasons:

  • Difficult pronunciation: we all know migrants who have anglicised their names because of sounds unfamiliar to the ear of English speakers, which make pronouncing their names difficult. I have noted this more among migrants from Asian countries who have generously adopted Anglo names to make life easier for everyone. Although my own name Saeed is not so hard to pronounce, I sometimes find it annoying when I have to spell it for everyone.
  • Fitting in: Almost all migrants want to make Australia home as soon as they arrive. As a migrant myself, I know too well the complexity of the migrant experience and the quiet struggle for acceptance and belonging. Mark instead of Mohammad or Mary instead Mahtab can help with the integration process. I've noticed it has become increasingly common among migrants to choose Anglo names for their newborns: one of my Persian friends recently named his newborn daughter Emma.
  • Avoiding discrimination: Unfortunately, I have heard several anecdotes about this phenomenon. A newcomer to this country has to wrestle with many challenges – language, work, unfamiliar systems, places, foods and culture. An acquaintance of mine who owns a consultancy firm recently revealed that he formally altered his legal name from Hussein to Tony in 2004. "In a competitive market, the last thing you need is to be overlooked because of your name, especially if it reminds the potential clients of a brutal dictator such as Saddam Hussein," he says. An Anglo name certainly seemed to be working in his favour. Is this phenomenon a product of subconscious biases?

If we dug deeper, we would find more reasons for people abandoning their name, language, beliefs and culture in order to assimilate.

After nearly 15 years of answering to Sam, changing my name back to Saeed seems impossible in the business world in which I operate; many professionals would be quite bewildered if they found an email from Saeed Fassaie in their inbox.

Last year I represented my company at the Master Builders Association annual event: I was to present a few construction awards during the second half of the evening. I asked the organisers to use my given name, Saeed, when they called me to the stage. Throughout the program, mine was the only non-Anglo name among dozens of people who were called to the stage. This didn't reflect the diverse community in which I live. For a moment I wondered how many of those individuals had hidden their original names beneath common Anglo labels for one reason or another.

Did I say that I regretted changing my name? I take that back. Why should I regret making a decision that was a product of my circumstances and insecurities at the time? Besides, Sam is no longer a stranger and is my real identity at work. Sam is real because my role and contributions at work are real, because it is the name by which my colleagues and clients know me.

But I do regret that by not keeping my original name at work I failed to contribute to the diversity and tolerance that are the essence of our Australian identity. My Australia is one of the most successful multicultural societies in the world, where Saeed is just as acceptable as Sam.

Saeed Fassaie is the author of Rising From The Shadows and a design manager at SRG Limited.

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