My Middle Name

I don't really have a middle name. I'm just plain, old Nadia Chaudhury, not Nadia Rachel Chaudhury or even Nadia Fatima Chaudhury (my actual first name, before they changed it).

But I do have a family middle name. I'm not sure if that's the correct term for it, but I call it that because my father, brother and I all have it. (My mother just uses her maiden name and my father's last name.) Nadia Hasan Chaudhury. According to my father, it was the middle name his father gave him and my father passed it on to his children. All of my official documents—passport, social security card, birth certificate—use that name.

I used to write my entire name out in my careful elementary-school penmanship. Once I learned script, however, I didn't like the way my 'H' looked—my 'N' and 'C' were swooping and pretty and the 'H' seemed too blocky. So I dropped "Hasan."

Now, I'm just Nadia Chaudhury.