Name Interview: How to Own a Big Name
- Kaomi Taylor
- Aug 1
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 16
From family history to Facebook fights, one young woman shares what it means to grow into a bold moniker.
The chief thing Independence Raymond wants you to know about her name? She defines it, not the other way around.
“I don’t like when people assume my natural independence is because of my name,” says the 23-year-old retail manager. “Am I just trying to uphold a standard for myself because of my name? No, it’s because when I was just starting adult life, I slept in a camper for three years and had no solid roof over my head, and I don’t want to do it again.”
After talking with this young woman for a few minutes, there’s little doubt she’ll actualize whatever future she intends.
Charisma. Focus. Ambition. Strength. If twenty-three years ago you’d been the one been trying to decide on a name for someone who would become this no-nonsense, wiry person sitting across from me - hair in a purple ponytail, dividing a small pastry into now and later portions - you could have divined any of those names and you’d have been right.
But back then, Indy’s mother wasn’t thinking about that, or about mounting patriotism in those days right after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. She was thinking about the state she loved, Vermont, history, and perhaps the peace and majesty of one of her most cherished places, Mount Independence. “Boy or girl,” she told her firstborn, “I wanted your name to represent this place.” The list of possibilities if she had been a boy included: Ethan Allen, Calvin (after Vermont-born U.S. president Calvin Coolidge), and Ti after Ticonderoga, a neighboring village in New York.
Whatever the reason, little Indy’s birth merited a human-interest news article in the local paper about her arrival. Indy reckons that so soon after the attacks, a baby named Independence gave people a rare reason to feel good.
I first met Indy while shopping at a pet superstore. Choosing from three hundred dog food options for a dog sensitive to mystery ingredients can be daunting – unless you are lucky enough to run into a management trainee who knows her stuff and can guide you to exactly the right options. The name tag she had on that day said “Indy.” But, she tells me, she has both versions and wears whichever is at hand – though reactions greatly differ. “At work, I’ll be helping someone and I can see their eyes get caught on the name tag,” she says about displaying her full name.
Still, she proudly uses Independence often in her customer service role. It feels more professional, she explains – though she also confesses amusement at the management complications that can ensue. Besides its uniqueness, she points out, her name is unusually long. “Back when I worked at Dunkin, no matter how they tried it wouldn’t fit on the name tag,” she says wryly. (She chuckles, but examples like this reveal why Name Fluency™—the ability to notice, respect, and flex around names—encompasses more than most organizations realize.)
Take the Name Fluency Workplace Quiz to see how your workplace stacks up!
“It took a while to grow into it,” she admits. “I didn’t tell anyone my name when I was a kid unless they asked, depending on my mood.” She thought for years of changing her name but her father said she had to wait until she was eighteen, and by that time, she concluded, “You know what, it’s not that bad.”
“As I got older I don’t know what made me switch into appreciating it,” she confides. But now she is all in. Not having learned cursive in school, she sought out her aunt, a nun and calligrapher, to try out the pleasure of writing her name in longhand. “I like how long my name is. Even I have a hard time filling it out – wait, how do I spell my name again?” she jokes. “It’s just satisfying.”
Misunderstandings occur: She has faced down a lot of strangers on Facebook berating her for having a fake account. And sometimes the stereotypes and comments – like the assumption that she was born on the fourth of July – get old.
“I’m just over it,” she says. Indy says she’s asked often what she will name her kids, and she has no idea. “I can’t even name my animals. I don’t want to put her kids through the years of hell I went through but I also don’t think I’d name them ‘Emily.’” Though, she has mused, “If I ever were to give myself a middle name for s***s and giggles it would be ‘Day.’”
“I sometimes get confused when people forget my name,” she confides. It’s a hazard born of a name always in the spotlight, never blending in. “It’s like: how could you forget that?”
But, she reiterates, just because you know her name doesn’t mean you know her. “It’s like, I like looking at constellations and horoscopes, but I’m not the kind of person that’s going to base my life around [my birthdate],” she says. It’s no different, as she sees it, when a random person thinks they know her story because just they know her name.
“People think my name made me a strong person but that was my mom raising me that way and my support system. I was dealt a crappy hand of cards and my name is Independence; those things just happen to go with one another.”
She’s never met another person named Independence, but she’d like to. “I like the originality—Indy’s different—but I wouldn’t want someone to name their kid after me just because of that.”
She pauses. “Still, I wouldn’t ever change it. That name’s been through a lot with me.”
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