Growing up, I always hated my name. My mom told me she chose “Harmony” because I was supposed to bring peace to her relationship with my father. Instead, his abuse became the reason we fled California for Ohio when I was five. Soon, two questions began to dominate every conversation with new teachers and friends alike:
- Why did you leave California?
- Why did your mom name you ‘Harmony’?
As I grew up, I typically told people I didn’t know. But secretly, I thought I did:
“. . . because I was supposed to bring peace, and I didn’t work.”
I easily internalized the failure of my parents’ relationship as a personal shortcoming. My name was supposed to be who I was—after all, have you ever seen a star that didn’t shine?
Now, as I escape my own domestic violence situation, I see the hope my mom attached to me. That hope is still alive, clear in the “Mother to Daughter” prayers she sends in the family group chat. A question I must ask myself in the wake of this revelation is: why do we have names, and what is mine?
The Step-Back: Where Did It Begin?
The smell of musty leather fills the air as the district school bus steers through the foggy morning drizzle in Canal Winchester, Ohio. The way to school was nothing but soybeans, cornstalks, and churches, punctuated by a growing variety of fast-food restaurants. I sat with my arms wrapped around my overpacked bookbag, clutching it to my chest to keep it from bumping the kid next to me. His hoodie was up and his face was turned to the window; I had no idea who he was.
Through my janky wired headphones, my purple iPod Shuffle played Forest by Twenty One Pilots. The lead singer whined an intense question into my ears: “Does it bother anyone else that someone else has your name? Your name?”
That question turned around in my brain for hours. Should it? At the time, there was only one other Harmony in the school district, and her version ended with an ‘i’ instead of my ‘y’.
But should it bother anyone? Especially me—someone who hated her name. What is my name, anyway?
Hi, my name is Harmony Igweka, but my mom usually calls me by one of my middle names: Chinasa. It means “God blesses me” in my father’s native tongue. The main reason I hated that name was because she usually used it when she was angry with me—which felt constant. My father’s name is Chinazam—the masculine version of my name—and sometimes my mom called me that, too. Sometimes I wondered if she saw me as him. Sometimes I wondered if she saw him the way I did: useless.
I didn’t like my first name, either. There were too many syllables and no respectable nicknames. While Elizabeth gets ‘Beth,’ I got ‘Harm-dog’ or ‘H-money.’ Yet, deeper down, I hated being called “Peace” when I felt nothing like it—when I was nothing like it—when I failed to be it.
Have you ever had a stage in your life where you hated the name people used for you?
Keep reading.
The Standing Position: Where Did I Get Stuck?
I’ll cut straight to the chase: the most common place I get stuck is in my own mind. So, let’s think about it.
Humans have used names to label each other as far back as the earliest written records go. Ultimately, being named is one of your first human experiences. (Side note: While most people want to think this represents something beautiful, anyone who has truly lived knows that the more “human experiences” you have, the heavier they can feel.)
Children take on the names of past relatives. Wives take the last names of their husbands. Yet, interestingly, only 5–10% of people ever change their first names.
Which brings me to my main question: What if more people changed their first names? What would be the occasion?
It wasn’t until 2025 that I encountered the occasion for a personal name change: rebirth. This is a concept backed by the divine; there are four God-initiated name changes in the New Testament alone.
Therefore, the question for you becomes: If you gathered all of your uniqueness, identity, heritage, culture, and legacy into a single word—what would be your new name?
Allow me to re-introduce myself as I am now. By the end of this, I hope to help you find your name, or perhaps solidify your love for the one you already have.
The Step Forward: Who Do I Want to Be?
Hi. My mother named me Harmony Chinasa-Renee Igweka, and you all can call me Ren.
“Renee” holds significant familial importance, having been passed down through three generations of my maternal line. My grandmother, whom we lost in 2018, was the first I knew to hold the name. But I didn’t truly consider its significance until early 2025 when I started a new job and had the opportunity to reinvent myself.
Just like that moment in the movie Divergent, I strategically chose a name no one had called me before. A nagging feeling told me this was the name God wanted me to use in this new season—a season following a difficult eight-month period of unemployment where I relied on nothing but Him to survive.
It wasn’t until the end of 2025, as I ruminated over how to revamp my blog, that I finally looked up the meaning of Renee: it is a French name meaning “reborn” or “born again,” derived from the Latin Renatus.
In that moment, my purpose aligned. My task is to help those looking to reinvent themselves soar from the shadows of their old lives and into the bright skies of their future.
If that’s what you’re looking for, welcome. Stay awhile.
