no name stays untouched—
weathered by mouths and meanings,
still it holds its shape
—
There’s a question that floats around sometimes.
In conversations that veer a little too close to icebreakers,
or in forms that assume you want reinvention.
“If you had to change your name, what would it be?”
And I always pause.
Not because I haven’t thought about it—
but because I have.
I’ve imagined names softer at the edges,
names that might fit easier into foreign mouths,
names that don’t have to be repeated twice,
then spelled out loud like a puzzle.
I’ve imagined names that sound like they belong to someone more decisive.
More elegant.
Less of a question mark.
But then I return to mine.
Always.
Because my name isn’t just syllables.
It’s dirt and dialect.
It’s snow in the gutters outside my childhood home in Slovenia.
It’s the rust of bikes leaned against concrete stairwells.
It’s the sound my grandmother made when calling us in for soup.
It has softened and sharpened through three alphabets.
Been mispronounced in Japan,
mangled at airports,
clipped short by bank clerks.
But it’s held.
And in some strange way—
all those missteps became part of it.
A name worn smooth by other people’s hands.
A stone passed around long enough to shine.
—
Not One, But Many
I’ve used different names in cafés,
when I didn’t want to explain again.
Nicknames that slid off like jackets.
Online handles that let me disappear.
But underneath,
there was always the original.
Not perfect.
Not poetic.
But real.
Tested by years,
by friendships that didn’t last,
and ones that did.
—
Wabi-Sabi in the Identity That Stays
A name doesn’t need to be elegant.
It needs to fit—not in the world,
but in your own bones.
It needs to echo.
And mine does.
So if someone asks me now what I’d rename myself,
I smile and think: I already have a name with a thousand faces.
It’s been spoken in at least four countries,
written in journals I’ve never shared,
and whispered in love once or twice.
Why would I trade that for anything smoother?
I’ve worked too long to grow into it.
Let it carry the weight of who I was.
Let it stretch to hold who I’m becoming.
A name like that doesn’t need changing.
It needs to be lived into.
Again and again.
life 