From a young age, names preoccupied me. As a child I didn’t like my name and I would often daydream about changing it. Na’ama (in Hebrew, נעמה) was too heavy for me. The lips must be open for too long to speak it, the tongue pressed to the floor of the mouth, held down by the weight of the letters. ‘Na’ama’ requires work. It weighed on my small child body, too old-fashioned, too long, too heavy. I wanted something lighter, a name one can speak with ease. As a pastime, I’d try other names for size. When I read a book, I would sink into the sound of the protagonist’s name. Most often I would dream about being called ‘Shir’ (Hebrew, שיר), which, in Hebrew, means ‘song’. Shir is light and short; it doesn’t demand the same contortion of lips and mouth as Na’ama does. It can be spoken with tenderness. One can’t say ‘Shir’ without breaking into a smile.

These childhood whims are now gone but my preoccupation with names remains. Even more so in Australia where my foreign name doesn’t roll off the Australian tongue with grace and ease. Here, my name doesn’t carry the same meaning as it does back home. While common among Muslims and Hebrew- or Arabic-speaking Jewish communities, in Australia this name is rare. Here, my name’s rich heritage, which is anchored in Jewish mystical and biblical traditions, is lost.¹ In Australia ‘Na’ama’ carries no meaning, but instead it stands for foreignness and difference.