Hi, my name is... Students switch between their two names.

Let me tell you a secret: My name isn’t really Joyce.

Sure, it may be what my friends call me, but my legal name is something entirely different — “李昀晏,” sometimes anglicized as “Li Kwan An” or “Li Yun Yan.” My parents say it was chosen for me by a fortune teller, combining the Chinese astrological elements that correspond with my time of birth and my parents’ aspirations for my personality. “昀” forecasts sunlight, while “晏” predicts peace and tranquility. Together, they represent my parents’ hope for a bright child with a good temper.

But when asked about my English name, my parents have a much simpler explanation: They named me after

Joyce-Collingwood Station, a metro stop they frequented when my family lived in Vancouver, Canada. “It’s short,” my dad tells me. “Easy to say.”

Asian Americans have been using English or anglicized names since the late 1800s, for reasons from fearing xenophobia to wanting a name white people will actually bother to pronounce. But many Asian Americans also have what NU Asian American studies and anthropology professor Shalini Shankar calls a “heritage name” — a name in their language of origin, an “ethnic marker” that ties them to their roots.