William, Shaniqua, Antonio, Chang, Ali. What comes to mind when reading these names? I’m pretty sure that most of the time, when someone sees or hears names such as these, the first thought is to racially classify each person according to his or her name. Though we may not realize it, society tends to classify us by the name we hold, thus impacting our destiny. In his essay “Naming Our Destiny,” Arnold M. Kee describes the dilemma he and his wife faced when trying to decide on a name for their newlyborn son. While Mrs. Kee “wanted an African name to link [their son] to [their] cultural heritage,” Kee “preferred a more culturally neutral name, to shield [their] son’s résumé or school applications from prejudice” (72). Evidently, Kee realized that society sometimes discriminates against someone based on his or her name. For that reason, Kee wished to protect his son from discrimination by choosing a name that was “not identifiably African” (78). Finally, they end up picking the name ‘Spencer Madison,’ confident that this given name will in due course “take on African American meaning” (78). Though it would have been better for them to not need to fear the possible outcomes of giving their son a certain name, I believe it’s good they took that into consideration. I can personally relate to Kee’s story, because the name that was given to me has somehow impacted my destiny too. Although both my parents are Mexican, my first and middle names have no trace of my Mexican heritage. In fact, everyone in my family (besides my parents and brothers and sisters) calls me ‘Christina’ because they believe that’s the name my parents should have given me in the first place! Not just family, but other Spanish-speaking people I know also insist on ‘Christina.’ I have even had teachers make sure that my name wasn’t spelled incorrectly on the class roster. Who would have thought that one small vowel could have