Immigrant Identity and the Emotional Journey Behind Our Names

This post was inspired by a moment in therapy.

During a session, they hesitated when needed to say their full name in Mandarin to explain their experience. When they finally did, they were immediately flooded by memories of their early life in their home country—some tender, others unresolved. The experience was overwhelming—like a sudden emotional tide—and we had to pause and process it together.

For them, saying their name out loud was not a simple act. It was a portal to the past, to a version of themselves they weren’t ready to revisit.

This moment reminded me how powerful—and complex—names can be for immigrants. Our names carry the imprint of our personal and cultural histories. They can hold pride and belonging, but also pain and disconnection.

My Own Story: Becoming MJ

When I first came to the U.S., I continued to introduce myself by my Mandarin name, Meng-Ju. But I quickly noticed that no one around me could pronounce it correctly. For reasons I still can’t fully explain, the English spelling seemed to fail me—it didn't capture the true sound of my name. Even when I tried to spell it phonetically, something was still missing. The tones, which carry so much of the meaning and emotion in Mandarin, were simply lost.

Over time, I found myself disconnected from the name. It felt foreign in this new context, as if it belonged to someone I could no longer fully access. I wasn’t responding to it when people said it out loud—not because I didn’t want to, but because it didn’t sound like me anymore.

One day, a friend suggested I go by “MJ”—a simple initial-based name that still held the root of Meng-Ju, but offered a fresh, approachable entry point for people in my new environment.

To my surprise, I felt a sense of ease and clarity. MJ became a bridge—between where I came from and where I was now. It didn’t erase my past; it added a new chapter to it. It gave me a way to belong in a new place, while still carrying the essence of who I’ve always been.

In Jungian psychology, this adaptation could be seen as a shift in persona—the social self we craft to meet the demands of our environment. The persona isn't a false self, but a necessary one, especially when navigating different cultural contexts.

For me, MJ became more than a practical solution; it became an invitation into a new layer of identity, rooted in both continuity and change.

The Emotional Landscape of Names

Names are never just names. They carry memory, identity, and deep emotional resonance, often rooted in the culture and relationships that shaped us.

For immigrants, a single person may move through several names across the course of their life: an original name in the language of their birth, nicknames in childhood, a different name used among friends or at school, another in the workplace, or a simplified version adopted to navigate a new culture.

Each of these names holds its own emotional complex—a web of feelings, memories, roles, and experiences. Some evoke warmth and closeness. Others might carry pain, shame, or a sense of disconnection. And often, they carry a complex blend of both.

In Jungian terms, a complex forms around emotionally charged experiences, especially those that shape our sense of self. The name your family calls you might activate a different emotional world than the name you use at work. These associations can be deeply unconscious and emerge suddenly—just hearing your name said a certain way can evoke feelings you didn’t realize were still alive in you.

Recognizing this emotional complexity is not about choosing one identity over another. It’s about beginning to understand the different ways our psyche holds memory, belonging, and adaptation—and how names can be both anchors and mirrors in that process.

The Many Selves We Carry

As immigrants, we often find ourselves living with multiple identities.

The person we were at home, the person we became to survive or succeed in a new environment, the person our family still sees, and the person we’re still becoming.

In Jungian psychology, this journey toward inner wholeness is known as individuation—the lifelong process of integrating all parts of ourselves. Individuation doesn’t require us to choose between identities. Instead, it asks us to make room for all of them. The goal is not to reduce ourselves to one "true" self, but to live more consciously and compassionately with the many aspects of who we are.

The name “MJ” does not cancel out my original name. Both are parts of me.

They represent different places, different chapters, different relationships.

Learning to hold both names—and the different selves they connect to—has been part of my own individuation journey. It has allowed me to see that complexity is not a flaw. It is a sign of growth.

The Weight of Ancestry and the Cultural Unconscious

In many Asian cultures, names are not chosen casually. They are given with intention—often by elders—carrying hopes, virtues, or poetic meanings. Sometimes, a name includes elements from ancestral generations, subtly connecting us to a lineage we may not consciously know.

Jung spoke of the collective unconscious—a shared layer of the psyche that holds cultural symbols, archetypes, and inherited memory. For immigrants, our names may link us to this deeper inheritance, even if we don’t fully understand its scope.

Some of us know the meanings behind our names or the people who chose them. Others never had the chance to ask or may have lost the connection through time, distance, or silence. Still, names can carry not only personal memories, but the psychic weight of migration, survival, sacrifice, or family legacy.

This can be both beautiful and heavy.

Sometimes, we are not yet ready to carry it all. Sometimes, we need to set a name aside before we can return to it. And sometimes, we need a new name to grow into the version of ourselves that our current life is asking for.

Closing Reflections: Immigrant Identity and the Emotional Journey Behind Our Names

Saying your name can be an act of courage. It can also be an act of grief, of tenderness, of rediscovery.

For many immigrants, names are deeply layered. They hold the story of where we come from, where we are, and where we might be going.

Learning to say your name with awareness—even if it changes over time—is part of learning to honor your inner journey.

Psychotherapy offers a space to explore this kind of layered immigrant identity. To understand the emotional weight a name may carry. To make peace with the past and imagine new ways of being.

Whether you go by your given name, a chosen name, or both, your identity is not fragmented—it is rich, evolving, and whole.

Your name is part of your story. And your story is still unfolding.

For many immigrants, names are deeply layered. They hold the story of where we come from, where we are, and where we might be going.