Sometimes African names can be confusing, so we've given our daughter one

It took us 6 weeks to name our daughter. On the last day to register her without being fined, we settled on a Ghanaian first name with a Welsh middle name and a family middle name to grace her birth certificate. We hadnt imagined that the process would be so difficult. But, regardless of David Mitchells amusing argument , naming a child is complex stuff.

Id assumed I would always have an African name. Then I fell in love with a European. Before our wedding, my husband and I agreed that if I took his English surname our kids would have Ghanaian first names. As a first generation immigrant, born in London to parents born and raised across 5 countries, I know the craving for roots that my daughter will likely feel. For her, a connection to Englands green and pleasant land will be natural but incomplete. Weve already spent much of her first year of life explaining her heritage to confused strangers. My daughter, like her mother, is likely to find that the words of Ijeoma Umebinyuo deeply resonate: too foreign for here, too foreign for there. Never enough for both.

So why did we make her Diaspora Blues worse by giving her a name that demands an explanation?

Well, naturally, I want my daughter to have a connection with Ghana. Names are important in my culture - some of my happiest memories were family outdooring ceremonies when babies are names by elders. Outdoorings are a time of laughter, food and togetherness. At these naming ceremonies, families unite to show a tiny new creation that they belong.

In my mind it was a given that my daughter would have both this ceremony and a Ghanaian name to connect her to the motherland. Many of our friends and family saw it very differently.

Not long after my daughters birth, well meaning warnings began to flood in. An African name would limit her job prospects. Complicated names arent appealing to employers . So why did we choose an African name, knowing that those with black names have a harder time at school and in the job market ? A concerning tweet from the British Museum this morning reminded how much I dislike the tendency to anglicise names.

Choosing to ignore my African culture and give my daughter an English name may have made her life easier - less discrimination, less explanations, less need to spell her name. Perhaps. It wouldnt, however, have shielded her from racism. Giving in to pressure to mask my daughters African roots would have been about me trying to survive bad circumstances rather than creating and expecting change. And it wouldnt truly have made a difference.

Its similar with gendered names. Mary Ann Evans and Charlotte Bronte wrote as George Eliot and Currer Bell. We see Taylor Swift writing as Nils Sjoberg today, because having a female name can be a disadvantage . Even so, naming my daughter Joe wouldn't afford her the same privileges as a Joseph. Even if her CV was deemed to belong to a man, shed be forced to compete against a more palatable, male-and-thus-acceptable version of herself. She would start in a one down position. Having a Y chromosome would make her a disappointment from the first glance, even if subconsciously.

Furthermore, my daughter may not want the type of job that requires a traditional CV. What if she wants to be an actress, writer or speaker? There are many careers where a unique and memorable name may actually help. Or she may want to relocate to Ghana where her name will help her to fit in.

Whatever she chooses to do I will raise her to aim for excellence and have such a varied and full CV, that her name wont matter. Rather than waste time masking her African roots, Ill teach my daughter to pursue her interests and, if doors shut in her face, to boldly create her own opportunities.

In a way I'm glad to have had my CV ignored by those to whom I will never be good enough. And that may be good for my daughter too. Whilst names can invite discrimination now - I hope for, and will work towards, change so that its different when my children are ready to work.

To build a world where gender, ethnicity and hairstyle don't limit employment opportunities, its important for us to identify, process & purge personal prejudice. All of us pre-judge people and situations. It would be hard to function if we didnt. Recognising where judgements and stereotypes are negative is the first step in avoiding prejudice. Theres even a nifty Harvard test you can do to help identify your prejudices . This process isnt helped by disguising differences.

So whilst my daughters name may mean that she won't get ahead where a key decision maker discriminates, consciously or subconsciously, against Africans, I think thats okay. If she disagrees, she can always change her name .