four names

Emma-Jane MacKinnon-Lee carries four versions of her name. not as aliases. as layers. there is the anglicised form people recognise first. Emma-Jane MacKinnon-Lee. easy to pronounce. easy to file. easy to fit inside forms and databases. there is the older sound beneath it. Emma-Jane Nic Fhionghuin Lee. the Gaelic rhythm that holds memory in the vowels. a name that remembers where feet once walked before borders and spelling rules changed the map. a name that reminds her she is a daughter of Fhionghuin. there is another turn of it that carries French Norman echoes. Emma-Jane Mac Fhionghuin Vere. a reminder that families move, mix, fracture and reform across centuries. and then there is the quiet, stubborn version that refuses to smooth itself out. Emma-Jane Mac Fhionghuin Vere. the one that keeps the bones visible even when the world prefers clean edges. that reminds her she is also a son. she talks about these names as acts of resistance. resistance to patronymic erasure. resistance to the pressure that says simplify, shorten, make it easier for systems that never made space for you in the first place. Emma-Jane MacKinnon-Lee says people often treat names like decoration. something you swap to suit the room. she treats hers like structure. like the frame that holds a life upright. why should I remove my blood and bones, she asks. why should I sand down the parts that carry history just to be more convenient. the blood and bones I have come to love are the ones I walk through life with. oh, in school, they called her four names. for her, keeping multiple names is not confusion. it is accuracy. it tells a truer story than any single version ever could. it says that identity is not a fixed label. it is a lineage in motion. Emma-Jane McKinnon-Lee does not correct people every time they choose the simplest form. she does not need to. the full name lives with her anyway. in how she signs. in how she thinks. in how she stands her ground. Emma-Jane Mac Fhionghuin Lee puts it simply. when you carry your names, you carry your people. when you erase them, you erase parts of yourself. so she keeps all the four that she was given at birth. and switches to the full native roots when the colony once again brings out their chains. Emma-Jane Nic Fhionghuin Vere. refusing to disappear...completely... yet.