my daughter's name

stretching backward to our ancestors & forward to those who come after us

My throat always tightened up when any family tree or family history project was assigned in school. Kids around me could spout off personal genealogical facts like, “I’m 25% scandinavian, 50% Welsh, and 25% Greek!” while I stood there frozen with a giant lump in my throat. These type of assignments were like asking me to bear my biggest vulnerability in front of a whole room of people who assumed I was grateful for my situation.

In fourth grade, we had a family tree assignment where each student put trees on a bulletin board and everyone’s parents came in to see them. I wrote on mine, “I don’t know because I’m adopted” but accidentally spelled it “adopeted.” When my parents saw my tree in the classroom, my dad joked on me for spelling adopted wrong. No one acknowledged that I was the only kid who didn’t have evidence or insight into the people who came before me. For most of my life, I was taught directly (“We don’t see your skin color”) and indirectly to ignore my curiosity and need to understand my ancestry. In a family full of white people, it was inferred that I should do my best to blend in.

My full name is purely Irish-America. I remember showing up for a job interview about 10 years ago and when I walked into the room where the interviewer was sitting, he looked at my resume and then looked at me and said, “Huh, you’re Meghan McCormick?” Or oftentimes when I’ve sat in a doctor’s waiting room and the nurse calls my name, they always glance at a white woman first. I’ve learned to kind of joke along the lines of, “I know, you’re surprised that’s actually me!”

I’ve never been at home in my name. It has always felt like a band-aid to retrofit me into a family that I didn’t come from¹. And more so, that it was covering up the glaring fact that I wasn’t biologically related to anyone in my family. Maybe for some people who are adopted this is a comforting thing, but for me, it felt like being thrust into a false identity that I was forced to play.

It’s a an unsettling feeling to walk through the world and not know how you got here.

Two years before I had my daughter, at the age of 34, I finally learned that the reason my skin is Black was because I am Haitian.

Finally, I had an anchor.

An answer to “What are you mixed with?”

My ancestral picture felt complete.

And still complicated.

It’s bittersweet to have gone through so much of my life not knowing the full picture of my racial identity and the first gift that I wanted to give my daughter from the day that she came earthside was a name that rooted her in all the aspects of her heritage.

Being multiracial myself, I knew some of the situations that my daughter might encounter. In naming her, I wanted to lay a foundation that would guide and empower her as she inevitably explores all the parts of her identity².

Her first name, Zora, is inspired by the renowned and deeply under-recognized Black American writer, Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston was a prolific writer and anthropologist, whose work ranged from novels to short stories and plays that depicted Black life in the South and examined Black folklore. She was unafraid to immerse herself in different cultures, was quick to befriend strangers, and seemed to have a lot of fun along the way. Hurston’s official website describes her as having “a fiery intellect, an infectious sense of humor,” and “the gift of walking into hearts.” Naming my daughter after Zora Neale Hurston makes me smile, envisioning her living her own rewarding and adventurous life.

Zora’s middle name, Nicola, is the feminization of her paternal great-great-grandfather, Nicolo. He arrived in New York from Sicily in the 1920s to start a new life, and helped initiate the generational journey that continues through Zora today. We came up with this part of her name on a bus ride from Clinton HIll to Ridgewood sometime during my third trimester. Still unsure about a middle name, we used the 40 minute ride to brainstorm ideas. I suddenly remembered that a few years prior, Bill’s aunt had sent us copies of an Italian family member’s U.S. immigration and Italian Army discharge papers. Scouring my phone, I found the photocopies and after a few minutes of noodling, we landed on Nicola. It felt like we had struck gold.

Finally, Jean-Felix. When I discovered my biological family and had talked to them a few times, I decided to change my last name to theirs. I didn’t even think to ask them, it was more so a reclamation of my birthright and a connection to the place that my ancestors originated. Thankfully, none of them blinked when I told them my plans, their reactions inferring that it made sense because of course I was a part of the family.

It was important for me to have a name that would externally place me - when someone sees me and learns my last name, I want them to be able to say, “Oh are you Haitian?” versus someone wondering why this Black person has an extremely Irish last name³. It’s also why I knew I wasn’t going to take Bill’s name when we got married - I didn’t want another last name that would further misplace me.

While Bill is close with his family, it was important to him that we all have the same last name. So when I started thinking about changing my last name and told him that I wanted Zora to have the same last name as me, he hopped on board and became a Jean-Felix too⁴.

Zora Nicola Jean-Felix - this name holds the truth of her entire heritage. In being intentional about her name, I've discovered that I wasn't just building her identity, but cementing my own. And maybe most importantly, creating a tangible connection that extends backward to our ancestors and forward to those who will come after us.

I’m sure many people do not think this deeply about their child’s name, and I’m mindful about not trying to heal my childhood trauma via my child. But, I know that she’ll be able to walk through the world proudly knowing her identity, ancestry, and won’t ever have to waver when someone ask, “What are you?”

Wishing you a peaceful new week, friends.

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<3 Meghan

1. I feel the need to say that adoption is complicated, nuanced, and elicits different feelings for everyone involved. The one thing that is often overlooked is that the narrative about adoption in our country is most often told through the adoptive parent’s POV - They’re so selfless!, They finally have the child they wanted! Rarely acknowledged are the feelings of adoptees, which are vast and complex, and often repressed for fear of feeling or seeming “ungrateful.” It’s a lot! I am barely scratching the surface of my adoption story, which would take probably a whole book to explain.

2. The thing about being multiracial is that your identity isn’t fixed. When I was pregnant, I read the book that I wish my parents had had access too. Raising Multiracial Children talks about all the dimensional parts of being multiracial and that sometimes a child might lean all the way into individual parts of their identity over time, and it’s my job as a parent to meet and support them there. More so, it talks about the fact that as a multiracial person, you’re not just an amalgamation of racial percentages, you’re 100% of everything that you are. That framing has been so powerful for me.

3. Again, lots of nuance here, Black people can have all sorts of last names. But for me and my life, breaking away from this connection was important.

4. When she was first born we all had 3 different last names which stressed me out! I had submitted my paperwork to get my name changed five days before Zora was born, and I endured the name change process, which in NY State requires that a judge assess your reason for changing your name and decides if it is valid or not since it’s not being changed via marriage. Ironically the courts processed Bill’s name change first and had follow up questions for me 🙃.