Sister Henrietta, my third-grade teacher at Immaculate Conception elementary school in the Bronx had trouble pronouncing my name every morning when she called attendance– so she changed it. One morning she announced in class that my name would be Grace, not Graziella. 

My dad yelled some expletive after hearing the news, but mamma, said that if that’s what Sister Henrietta wants, I have to obey.

Most days the good sister would scream my name and I wouldn’t answer, because it wasn’t me.

Could you imagine what would happen today if a teacher changed a student’s name?

Back in the ’70s the nuns apparently had the right to take your identity.

So from elementary school through high school and even college, my name was Grace or Gracie. In college, when I presented my resume to my advisor with my name, Graziella DiNuzzo in bold on the top of the page, he said I would never get an interview, let alone a job. I reluctantly changed it. I did have some very good jobs during the 80’s – was it Grace?

Like most immigrant children, I wanted to assimilate to American culture. I didn’t like being so ethnic. I wanted peanut butter and fluffer nutta on white bread for lunch. Instead, each morning mamma would freshly cook for our entire family. The aroma of the frittata on Italian bread, packed with so much love in a big brown bag, would waft through the air as it sat in the cubby hole under my desk in elementary school.  Mamma would write my name Graziella across the length of the bag in her beautiful cursive Italian script. By lunchtime, my name would be smeared in olive oil. My classmates made fun of me and most days I wouldn’t eat lunch. My friends had cool metal lunchboxes filled with simple ham and cheese sandwiches and a bag of Fritos. Mamma sometimes packed a Nutella sandwich, a delicious hazelnut chocolate spread – ironically very popular today.

The first time I heard my name read out loud in a formal public setting was in church on my wedding day – at the age of 25. The church office said they had to use my birth certificate name, (also the name on my marriage license), during the ceremony. The priest didn’t seem to have a problem with saying Graziella.

In many cultures, your name defines your place among your ancestors. In Sicilian culture, the third child, if its a girl, is named after the maternal grandmother.  I’m honored to be named after my nonna Graziella.

I was in my thirties when I decided to fully reclaim my birth name. Graziella may not roll as easily on the tongue for some, and many have said, “I just can’t say it,” as they look at me to relieve their pain.  “Godzilla?” someone once asked.

Today I am told that my name is artsy and exotic. My childhood friends have asked if I changed my name to Graziella to be cool, you know, fit in.   No, Sister Henrietta, that’s my name.