When you have a name people say is 'too hard'

Ever felt pressured to pick up a nickname because people say your name is "too hard"? Or perhaps you've become used to people and online forms removing special characters?

Like many students with a non-English name, illustrator Hingyi Khong and I vividly recall the anxiety and awkward pause before teachers called out our names on the school roll.

"A former high school English teacher once shortened my name to a single H for an entire year," Khong says. "Been called 'Hey guy' and 'Not gonna even try' more times than I can count."

Then there are times when others want to 'correct' us or throw assumptions. "Surely, that's a mistake," someone said when I wrote my name with an apostrophe. "And then there's 'el' at the end, right?" a university staff member assumed of this hijab-wearing student.

Giving children names like Tunisia and Cairo was one way Māori remembered those killed in World War II battles.