"What is your name?"

Seems like an innocent enough question, doesn't it?

I needn't think much about it, not prior to the last two months.

My name is a code in which you call me, and it is what I tell you. But I have been pondering this particular question for the past two months or so.

I cannot say that, I have just one name. I doubt that most people can.

Being a user of two languages (almost three, allow me to explain later on), I have a name in each language. I also have nicknames, monikers if you will, that my friends call me by, which differs from my nick that my family calls me by.

I use a pseud online.

None of these, are exactly the same.

I was born in Germany, my father was an engineering student who had a thing for languages. He approached German and phonetics as he approached engineering: methodically. So when he came to the conclusion that our last name shall be spelled Yim instead of the more common variation Yin, is was due to phonetic reasons.

As far as I know, our family is the only one that carries that particular family name which represents 尹, our Chinese family name.

And because the family was in Germany at the time of my birth, my Chinese name, 尹安玫, was spelled in accordance to the German phonetics, instead of the common An-Mei Yin, I was named An-Meh Yim, on my German birth certificate. For the authorities, that was my name.

As the only granddaughter to my paternal grandparents, I was 妹妹Meimei, literally, just 'little sister'. Sometimes my grandmother would call me 丫頭Yatou, which meant 'little girl'. For them, that was my name.

I started to resent my name at a certain age, when I realised it's pronunciation would forever tie me to being 'little sister'. And as all big sisters of the family, that is something that definitely, should not happen. I named myself Annie in English, and that was my name in which I learned to sign.

There was a time I considered changing my English name to Anastasia. So during the early adaptation of internet, I named myself thus online, the Chinese nick I gave myself then was 亞Yah. Funnily enough, the one life-long friend I've made during that time, whom I have met numerous times in real life, and is fully aware of my legal name and English name, still calls me Yah sometimes. Any correspondence between him and me, is still signed with that single Chinese character.

My friends from high school, gave each other more nicknames. To them, to this day, I'm still 玫子Meizi, a homophone with 梅子plum, the fruit. And I sometimes still sign official papers with that.

Because of this, I wanted my English nick to be it, but something cooler, something that sounded Japanese, maybe. I named myself meiko a little over 8 years ago, and used that handle online ever since. It turned out to be a mistranslation, if not outrageously wrong assumption. But it stuck as my handle online.

In Taiwan, for some strange reasons, we call each other by the English name more often than the Chinese name, after you enter the field of working. Annie is a far too common name in Taiwan, there were 3 at the company I worked for. To differentiate between the different Annies, I, as the youngest, was called Little Annie, and slowly, it morphed into 安妮An-Ni, which is just a phonetic translation of the English to Chinese. And most people that I knew from work still continue to call me that.

My partner calls me Kitty. I answer to that, too. His parents call me Ann. As I'm the only one with that name in their circle, I answer to that too.

So who am I? Am I different, because of these different names? Are they not all, the same person? Do I really change?

So why should I relinquish the the choice of being called any of those, and be defined as simple just one name?
What's your name?