The joy of receiving a Cambridge acceptance letter is more often than not followed by a new worry: how to reconcile your identity in your new environment. There is nothing surprising about this, the Cambridge bubble being something you have to actually experience to understand it. For most, these worries seem to iron themselves out during Freshers’ Week, where all those previous concerns over what you should be wearing, what you should be saying and how you should be acting soon dissolve. But for myself, those initial anxieties of fitting in at university pressured me to chisel away at an aspect of my identity. As a result, it has left my identification as a British Indian in a weird, grey area.

My birth name is Chandan. Written with letters from the Hindi alphabet which have no direct English equivalent, I have spent my life experiencing my name being mispronounced, exoticised, ignored and ridiculed. The worst part of meeting new people was introducing myself, and hearing the repetitive line-up of questions which would follow. Has a Cheryl ever needed to explain why the ‘Ch’ in her name should actually read ‘Sh’? Or has she ever had to use the first couple of minutes of an introduction explaining what her name means, why her parents thought to choose it, and to pronounce it a couple more times so that everyone can try saying it themselves? Having a ‘foreign name’ is not always easy.

I was born and raised in the London Borough of Hounslow, a South Asian diaspora community where white people were a minority in my classroom. My name was never questioned. It was normal when a substitute teacher struggled to pronounce two-thirds of the register, and the variety of names, pronunciations and spellings were accepted by all. However, when I started my first part-time job, I was given a new experience of being an ethnic minority in a social setting. I realised that a name like mine would not be accepted outside my little bubble where South Asian culture dominated.

“I’ve heard it all: Chan, Dan, Jackie Chandan, Chaz, Channy, Chezza”

I experienced people trying to resolve the issue of my ‘obscure’ name by giving me nicknames they felt where appropriate, whether I liked it or not. And, believe me, I’ve heard it all: Chan, Dan, Jackie Chandan, Chaz, Channy, Chezza. Naturally, I hated them all. People preferred to ignore me than to face the embarrassment of trying to tackle my name because they found it strange. I became reserved, antisocial, and introverted.

I was terrified this would happen to me at Cambridge. And so I wanted to take control of how my name impacted my social interactions, and chose to shorten my name to Dani. I call Dani my ‘Cambridge name’ because its only here that I’m known by this, and it has allowed me to skip out all of unwanted conversations about my name, and be able to meet new people like everyone else – without my name being an issue to discuss.

The backlash I received from my friends, family and those who knew me by my birth name was unexpected, but has also thrown a spanner into my identity. I was accused of trying to ‘become white,’ turning my back on my Indian heritage, and trying to conform to Western standards. On my first visits home, so much of my time was spent trying to justify my why I had made the decision to ‘change’ my name.

Cambridge needs to support all working-class students, not just the white ones

The only thing that can be said is that it is difficult growing up with a ‘foreign’ name. And it is a sad reality that going to university can impact that element of your identity. Sometimes, when term drags on, I miss hearing my mum call me Chandan. I still question what name I should be using when I enter the big, scary world that is the job market, and I still think twice about which name I should use when I introduce myself to new people.

The fact that I felt so pressured to change my name has brought into question my identity of being an Indian woman growing up in an environment that is arguably entirely incompatible with the cultural identity that comes with being a person of colour. As I mature, I’ve become certain that my cultural background is fundamental to my identity. But sometimes, I cannot help but wonder if changing my name was the first of many steps where I will strip away the things that make me so uniquely different, in order to become just like everyone else. I truly hope this is not the case.