Can I Call You Akka?: How I Reconciled My Indian Name With My American Identity

Akka literally means big sister in Telugu. But to me, Akka means so much more. 

Akka is the beckoning call of my little sister when she needs my help with her Spanish homework. Akka is, to me, my cousin’s name, the only thing I’ve ever called her. Akka is what my dance teacher turns around at, and what her children call me. 

And Akka is me. My little sister has only ever called me Akka, and I associate the word, when it comes from my sister, to mean me. 

So when my sister, now a freshman at our high school, asked me if she was allowed to call me Akka at school, I was stunned. “Why would you not be allowed to?”

She shrugged uncomfortably and slinked away, but I knew why. It’s the same reason that I pronounce my name Nick-hee-duh when I introduce myself, instead of the way it should be said, Nick-he-tha, with the emphasis on the first syllable, not the second. It’s the same reason I created a less Indian version of my name—Niki—to give out, for ease—or maybe to hide the Indian part of me. 

Because my name has always been a point of contention in my family. When I was younger, my parents would frown at my Americanized pronunciation of my name. They never understood why I felt the need to give up what they felt was the perfect name. But I didn’t like watching the double takes that people did when my parents said my name. I didn’t like the fact that I had to spell it for every single person I met, and people still got it wrong. I didn’t like that I never found my name on keychains at stores. I didn’t like that autocorrect changed, and still changes, my name, that Google Docs underlines it in bright, glaring red. 

So to me, it was simple. Get rid of the red line. Change people’s expressions. Take away a few letters from my name, and there it was—Niki. Easy to spell, easy to pronounce—I even found it on souvenir keychains.

At home, though, I was still Nikhita. And to my sister, I was still Akka. So the dilemma remained—I had effectively changed my name at school, but now my sister was on campus. What was I supposed to do now?

I’m not the only one who’s thought about this long and hard. I come from an area where almost everyone I know is the child of immigrants. Cultural names are not uncommon for us; almost every single one of us has an American pronunciation and an Indian pronunciation of our names. 

But one day, I was watching Hasan Minhaj, and he talked about how he explained to Ellen how to properly say his name. And she got it! And now he doesn’t have to change his name anymore, doesn’t have to give out an American version.

Now when people ask my name, I pronounce it correctly. Nik-he-tha. And if they have trouble saying it, I still offer up Niki as an alternative. I’ve grown up with Niki, and I don’t mind it at all. But in my mind, I’ve changed how I see my name. It’s no longer a burden, something to deal with at Starbucks. It’s what my parents chose for me, so I’m going to give it its due respect. 

So to my sister, I told her that yes, she was allowed to call me Akka. I’m Nikhita to my mom, Niki to my friends, Akka to my sister. Of course, it took me time to reach this conclusion. But if you have a cultural name, try saying it properly to a couple of people. Turns out, they won’t look at you any differently. Of course, I may not ever find Nikhita or Akka on a keychain—but they’re just as much a part of my identity as Niki is. I’ll just have to change the keychains to match my name, not my name to match them.