Say My Name

For Alissa, David, Eva, Jaime, Keisarina, Laura, Leila, Patrick, and Reem. This book would not be possible without you.

J. H.

For bé Đạt K.

L.

Say My Name

Text copyright © 2023 by Joanna Ho

Illustrations copyright © 2023 by Khoa Le

All rights reserved. Printed in Italy. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Children’s Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007. www.harpercollinschildrens.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ho, Joanna, author. | Le, Khoa 1982– illustrator. Say my name / by Joanna Ho ; illustrated by Khoa Le. First edition. | New York : Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2023] | Audience: Ages 4–8. | Audience: Grades K–1. | Summary: Six people from different corners of the world celebrate the history, culture, and beauty behind their names.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022022150 | ISBN 9780063205338 (hardcover)

Subjects: CYAC: Names—Fiction. | Identity—Fiction. | Self-perception—Fiction. | LCGFT: Picture books. Classification: LCC PZ7.1.H596 Say 2023 | DDC [E]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022022150

Typography by Chelsea C. Donaldson

Say My Name

By

JOANNA HO

Illustrated by KHOA LE

My name is full of tones and rhythms, melodies and harmonies, chords and cadences. Each syllable, each sound, is a building block in an architecture constructed over oceans and across generations.

Say my name.

My name is 何曉光

Hé Xiǎo-Guāng.

I am the daughter of dynasties. My family flows through me, pulling power from heaven with promises of peace and prosperity.

I am the first light of morning reaching over the horizon, the rays of a new day stretching into life.

Say my name.

My

name is ‘Ofā Kīvaha Tupoumālohi. Born while my dad crossed the sea, I am the union of hearts that pulse with pounding waves and flow with the saltwater lifeblood of the world.

I am a descendant of kings and a fierce warrior of the South Pacific. Our islands are small, but we are immense we are children of the ocean. Say my name.

My name is Bijan Hosseini.

Once a jewel cradled in my mother’s arms, I look to Allah for guidance and walk with angels over my shoulders and prayers to sustain my steps.

Say my name.

I am the poetry of my people, its stanzas and verses weaving tapestries of history and carried in my soul.

My name is Nizhoni Yazzie.

I am Tódích’íi’nii, Bitter Water, born for Tótsohnii, Big Water.

My maternal grandfather is Hashk’ąą Hadzohí, Yucca Fruit Strung Out in a Line, and my paternal grandfather is Kinyaa’áanii, Towering House People. This is how I am a woman.

I live with hózhó, greeting the sun rolling across the sky, running through days, months, years in a universe where I walk in beauty. Say my name.

My name is Xóchitl Luna.

The power of my people spread through lands touched by the sun . . . before the conquistadores came.

My history is as complex and layered as the star-pointed petals of a pale-pink dahlia, but I am the moon with strength to pull oceans across Earth in tidal waves that shape and shift the future.

Say my name.

My name is Akosua Acheampong.

I am Sunday’s child one who flew into the world on the Lord’s Day with eyes closed and hands folded.

The rhythms of the atumpan, the apentemma, and the atoke sing praises through my veins as I dance through a world destined to remember my every step. Say my name.

Wrap your tongue around its sounds and memorize its shapes. Say it over and over and over again until its tones and rhythms, its melodies and harmonies, its chords and cadences carve home in your mouth and settle in your spirit.

Each syllable, each sound, is a building block in an architecture constructed over oceans and across generations.

They are pieces laid by those who looked into the heavens and saw me in the stars, who knew me before they knew me and lived that I might be.

My name is a window to my world, a door to my destiny, a key to unlock the dreams of my ancestors, the hopes of my family, and the divine that lives within.

Say my name.

Anything less is not me.

In writing a story of people from cultures that are not mine, I leaned heavily on the knowledge and wisdom shared with me by dear friends. Thank you, Jaime Barajas, David Bowles, Eva Bighorse, Reem Bilbeisi, Alissa Lai-Ming Firmage, Keisarina Hafoka, Laura Obuobi, Leila Sadeghi, and Patrick Tupoumalohi, for opening your lives to me. I am honored to have the opportunity to hold these stories with you.

Pronunciation guide

何曉光 Hé Xiǎo-Guāng (huh SHEE-ow g-oo-ah-ng)

何曉光 is my Chinese name. 何 is my family name. Though there are over two thousand Han Chinese surnames currently in use, one hundred of them are used by 87 percent of the Han Chinese population around the world. 何 is one of the most common. My father was born in Ningbo, China, but spent much of his youth in Hong Kong and speaks fluent Cantonese; Ho is the Cantonese romanization of 何. 曉光 is the name my paternal grandfather—my ayah—chose for me. It means “the first light of the morning.”

‘Ofā Kīvaha Tupoumālohi (OH-fah key-va-ha too-poh-mah-low-hee)

The Kingdom of Tonga is two nearly parallel chains of approximately 170 islands in the South Pacific. It is the only Pacific Island nation that maintained its indigenous governance—it has never been colonized. In Tongan culture, it is common for a baby’s fahu—father’s oldest sister—to hold the honor of naming her brothers’ children. ‘Ofā Kīvaha means “love at sea.” Tupoumālohi means “an intelligent, fierce warrior of the South Pacific.”

Bijan Hosseini (bee-SZAN hoh-say-NEE)

Composed in the tenth century by the poet Ferdowsi, the Shahnameh, or the Book of Kings, is one of the world’s longest epic poems. It tells the stories and myths of the Persian Empire, and approximately 10 to 15 percent of all Persian names come from the Shahnameh. Bijan means “hero”; Hosseini means “righteousness and beauty.”

Nizhoni Yazzie (nih-ZHOH-nih YAW-zee)

Navajo—Diné—society is matrilineal, and it is common to introduce oneself by name then clans: mother’s, father’s, maternal grandfather’s, then paternal grandfather’s. These introductions are significant because they share kinship, connection, and history. Nizhoni introduces herself first with her name, then with her clans, first in Diné bizaad, then translated into English. She ends with the self-affirming statement, “This is how I am a woman.”

Yazzie is a common Diné surname and means “little.” Nizhoni means “beautiful.”

The idea of walking in beauty is shared in the Diné word “hózhó.” It is a concept of balance and beauty between nature, the universe, man, and time; it embodies a way of life known as the Beauty Way and is captured in a traditional Navajo prayer.

Xóchitl Luna (SOH-cheet LOO-nah)

The Nahuas are a group of interrelated Indigenous communities in Mexico who speak Nahuatl. The Mexica were the most powerful Nahua nation in the Valley of Mexico. They have often been called the Aztec, a term popularized by a German explorer. The Mexica were massacred and colonized by Spanish invaders in the sixteenth century, and Xóchitl Luna’s name reflects this complex history. Xóchitl is the Nahuatl word for “flower.” Luna is a Spanish surname meaning “moon.”

Akosua Acheampong (ah-KO-see-ah a-CHUM-pong)

The Akan people of Ghana frequently name their children after the day of the week on which they were born. Akan children often have at least one name from this tradition. Akosua is a name given to girls born on Sunday. Acheampong is an Ashanti surname connected to an appellation that means “birther of kings.” Ashantis are part of the Akan ethnic group in Ghana.

The atumpan and apentemma are types of drums, and the atoke is a single bell shaped like a canoe. These are part of the drum ensemble used for Adowa, a significant dance of the Ashanti people that is often performed at public events.